The Impact of the Great Patriotic War

Victory for the USSR came at a great cost.

o    There were 19 million civilian deaths

o    Soldier deaths amounted to 9 million

o    1200 towns were destroyed

o    20,000 villages were destroyed

o    A total of 65,000 km of railways were destroyed

o    40,000 hospitals were destroyed

o    100,000 collective farms were left in ruin

Much of the territory regained from 1943 onwards was of little value, because anything of value had been destroyed during the German retreat.

-          Over ½ of the Ukrainian capital Kiev had been reduced to rubble

There was a mass diversion of financial and material resources to the military sector, while consumer goods remained in short supply. The war had destroyed 2/3 of Soviet property, especially through their own “scorched-earth” policy.

There was also a loss of seven years’ worth of pre-war levels of income, leading to a decrease in living standards.

Mass casualties totalled 1/5 of the pre-war population. Other than casualties, there was a traumatic impact as 18 million more soldiers were wounded, and by 1945 6 million prisoners had been tortured or killed. Because 3x as many more men than women died, this led to inter-ethnic marriages which went against Stalin’s policy of russification.

After the war, Stalin used force to reassert his control over collaborators and the national minorities:

-          General Vlasov – leader of the Russian Liberation Army. He was hung publically in the Red Square.

-          Returning prisoners of war – they were taken to labour camps and treated as potential enemies

-          National minority groups (e.g. Crimean Tartars and Volga Germans) – transported from their homes and abandoned in Kazakhstan. They were treated as enemies of the State.

·         In 1944 – 400,000 Volga Germans were exiled to Kazakhstan. Over 1/3 died, most were used for slave labour.

-          Slave labour camps – the number rose from 1.6 million in 1942 to 4.7 million in 1947

4^th Five Year Plan

In 1946, Stalin introduced his 4^th Five Year Plan that aimed at national reconstruction, and industrial recovery came at an amazing rate with the Dnieper Dam reopening in 1947.

-          By 1950, industrial production was 75% higher than it had been in 1940

-          Coal rose from 149 to 261 million tonnes between 1945-50

-          Between 1945-50 90% of industrial investment went into capital goods industries

BUT threats of famine returned as the government relied on grain procurements accounting for 70% of the harvest.