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Soviet Veterans as an Entitlement Group, 1945-1955

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Abstract

The article explores processes of group integration and disintegration among Soviet veterans of World War II during the first postwar decade. Approaches that focus on generation, legal privilege, formal organization, social mobility, or ideological outlook miss the considerable sociocultural complexity of this group. Between the end of mass demobilization in 1948 and the foundation of the Soviet Committee of War Veterans in 1956, former soldiers were integrated neither as a generation nor as a status group with formal privileges and their own organization (as would be the case in later years). What held them together was instead a shared sense of entitlement based on wartime sacrifice. During the first postwar decade, therefore, Soviet veterans are best understood as an “entitlement group.” Only in the 1960s and 1970s was this entitlement group transformed into a status group that became one of the major pillars of the late Soviet order.

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Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Stuthes. 2006

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References

A DAAD Doktorandensdpendium (2001-2002), a Mellon Dissertation Year Fellowship at the University of Chicago (2003-2004), and a New Faculty Travel Grant from the School of Humanities at the University of Western Australia in the (Australian) summer of 2004- 2005 supported the research and writing of this article. I would like to thank Sheila Fitzpatrick, Debra McDougall, and the two anonymous reviewers at Slavic Review for their critical reading of earlier drafts and their suggestions for revisions. Thanks also to Brian Bosworth who answered my queries about veterans’ benefits in Roman antiquity, to Kristin Roth-Ey for comments on terminology, and to Michael Geyer who consistently encouraged me to think comparatively about veterans.

1 For example, Linz, Susan J., ed., The Impact of World War II on tlie Soviet Union (Totowa, N.J., 1985)Google Scholar; Fitzpatrick, Sheila, “War and Society in Soviet Context: Soviet Labor before, during, and after World War II,” International Labor and Working-Class History 35 (Spring 1989): 3752 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Weiner, Amir, Making Sense of War: Tlie Second World War and tlieFate of the Bolshevik Revolution (Princeton, 2000)Google Scholar; and Conze, Susanne, Soxujetische Industriearbeiterinnen in den vierzigerjahren: the Ausmirkungen des Zweiten Weltkrieges auf the Erwerbstdtigkeit vonFrauen in der UdSSR, 1941-1950 (Stuttgart, 2001)Google Scholar.

2 Bennett, Michael J., When Dreams Came True: Tlie GI Bill and tlie Making of Modern America (Washington, D.C., 2000)Google Scholar.

3 For an inspiring take on the opposite, i.e., the “culture of defeat,” see Schivelbusch, Wolfgang, the Kultur der Niederlage: Der amerikanisclie Süden 1865, Frankreich 1871, Deutschland 1918 (Frankfurt am Main, 2003)Google Scholar. That the impact of total war depends on existing social, political, and cultural structures is now a consensus position in the “war and society” literature. See, for example, Marwick, Arthur, ed., Total War and Social Change (New York, 1988)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 Postanovlenie TsK KPSS i SM SSSR (10 November 1978): “O merakh po dal'neishemu uluchsheniiu material'no-bytovykh uslovii uchastnikov Velikoi otechestvennoi voiny,” Sobraniepostanovleniipravitel'stva SSSR, no. 27 (1978), st. 164 (pp. 540-42).

5 Historians’ tendency to write the history of veterans as the history of legal benefits and organization ignores deeper rooted commonalities among combat survivors. On welfare policy, see, for example, Englander, David, “Solthers and Social Reform in the First and Second World Wars,” Historical Research: The Bulletin of tlie Institute of Historical Research 67 (1994): 318–26CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For combinations of welfare policy and organizational history, see Geyer, Michael, “Ein Vorbote des Wohlfahrtstaates: the Kriegsopferversorgung in Frankreich, Deutschland und Grossbrittannien nach dem Ersten Weltkrieg,” Geschichte und Gesellschaft 9 (1983): 230–77Google Scholar; or thehl, James M., The Thanks of the Fatherland: German Veterans after the Second World War (Chapel Hill, 1993)Google Scholar. For a classical study of a veterans’ movement, its organizations, and politics, see Prost, Antoine, Les Anciens Combattants et la societe francaise: 1914-1939, 3 vols. (Paris, 1977)Google Scholar.

6 Zubkova, Elena, Russia after the War: Hopes, Illusions, and Disappointments, 1945- 1957, trans, and ed. Ragsdale, Hugh (Armonk, N.Y., 1998), 2527 Google Scholar,105-7.

7 I distinguish here between “entitlement“—the claim to special treatment—and “privilege“—the institutionalized recognition of such claims to special treatment.

8 On the SKW, see Potapovich'Pavlov, Boris, ed., Veterany v stroiu (Moscow, 1981)Google Scholar. On war memory and the cult of the war, see Bonwetsch, Bernd, “'Ich habe an einem völlig anderen Krieg teilgenommen.’ the Erinnerung an den ‘GroBen Vaterländischen Krieg’ in der Sowjetunion,” in Berding, Helmut, Heller, Klaus, and Speitkamp, Winfried, eds., Krieg und Erinnerung: Fallstuthen zum 19 und 20. fahrhundert (Gottingen, 2000), 145–68Google Scholar; and Tumarkin, Nina, 77jg Living and the Dead: The Rise and Fall of the Cult of World War II in Russia (New York, 1994)Google Scholar. On the SKW's section of invalids, see Fieseler, Beate, “Stimmen aus dem gesellschaftlichen Abseits: the sowjetrussischen Kriegsinvaliden im ‘Tauwetter’ der funfziger Jahre,” Osteuropa 52, no. 7 (2002): 945–62Google Scholar.

9 See Seniavskaia, E. S., Frontovoe pokolenie, 1941-1945: htoriko-psikhologicheskoe issledovanie (Moscow, 1995), 18 Google Scholar.

10 A classic of the generational approach to veterans is Wohl, Robert, The Generation of 1914 (Cambridge, Mass., 1979)Google Scholar. For the Soviet case, see Seniavskaia, Frontovoe pokolenie.

11 Cf. Mannheim, Karl, “The Problem of Generations,” in Kecskemeti, Paul, ed., & says in the Sociology of Knowledge (London, 1964)Google Scholar. Cf. also Seniavskaia's discussion in Frontovoe pokolenie, 77.

12 Nekrasov, Viktor Platonovich, “V rodnom gorode,” Izbrannye proizvedeniia: Povesti, rasskazy, putevyezametki (1954; reprint, Moscow, 1962), 284–85Google Scholar.

13 According to official statistics, 40 percent of the demographic losses were 25 years or younger. Krivosheev, G. F., “Poteri vooruzhennykh sil SSSR,” in Evdokimov, Rostislav, ed., Liudskiepoteri SSSR v period Vtoroi Mirovoi voiny: Sbornik statei (St. Petersburg, 1995), 78 Google Scholar.

14 Seniavskaia, Frontovoe pokolenie, 32. Also see Zubkova, Russia after the War, 23.

15 See, for example, the voluminous reports on demobilization to the Central Committee administration for control of party organs (Upravlenie po proverke partorganov) in 1945 and 1946: Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv sotsial'no-politicheskoi istorii (RGASPI), f. 17, op. 122, d. 102 (1945, 274 pages); d. 145 (Jánuary- March 1946, 196 pages); d. 146 (Jánuary-July 1946, 208 pages).

16 Velko to Tishchenko: “Spravka,” Tsentr dokumentatsii noveishei istorii Voronezhskoi oblasti (TsDNI VO), f. 3, op. 1, d. 550,11. 10-11.

17 The share of secretaries older than 30 years fell from 82 percent in the second half of 1945 to a low of 72 percent in 1948, only to recover significantly thereafter. At the same time, their absolute number steadily increased (from 124,807 in Jánuary 1945 to 271,916 in July 1950). This suggests that the influx of younger veterans was counterbalanced by the massive proliferation of party organizations during demobilization. Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv noveishei istorii (RGANI), f. 77, op. 1, d. 4, 11. 79, 176-77; d. 5, 11. 81-82,174-75; d. 6,11. 81-82, 182-83; d. 7,11. 82-83, 178-79; d. 8,11. 89-90, 83-84. The absolute numbers of this dataset are charted in Mark Edele, “A ‘Generation of Victors?' Soviet Second World War Veterans from Demobilization to Organization, 1941- 1956” (PhD diss., University of Chicago, 2004), 284, chart 4.5.

18 This information comes from analyzing the questionnaires completed by the delegates to the Moscow congress of veterans in fall 1956. The questionnaires requested name, birth year, nationality, military rank and service status, period of service in the army, current work, number of decorations, and region represented. Of these questionnaires, 695, with information about 87 percent of the approximately 800 delegates, have survived in the archival fond of the committee. They are preserved in seven files: Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Rossiiskoi federatsii (GARF), f. R-9541, op. 1, dd. 7-13.

19 This generation, i.e., men born between 1890 and 1904, was mobilized in August 1941. Seniavskaia, Frontovoe pokolenie, 77.

20 Cf. Pavlov, ed., Veterany v stroiu, 13-14, 19-21; Prut, Iosif, Nepoddaiushchiisia o mnogikh drugikh i koechto o sebe (Moscow, 2000), 25 Google Scholar.

21 On lieutenants’ prose, see Petr Vail' and Genis, Aleksandr, 60-e: Mir Sovetskogo cheloveka, 3d ed. (Moscow, 2001), 9192 Google Scholar,94-96. Victory posters typically depict young, beaming veterans, frequently with battle decorations on their chests. See, for example, V. Ivanov, “Ty vernul nam zhizn'” (1943); V Ivanov, “Tak ono i budet” (1945); A. Kokorekin, “Voinu—pobediteliu—vsenarodnaia liubov'” (1944); Golovanov, L., “Krasnoi Armii— slava!” (1946), all reprinted in Demosfenova, G. et al., eds., Sovetskii politicheskii plakat (Moscow, 1962), 371 Google Scholar, 372, 374, 382.

22 The two main statistical reconstructions are Andreevet, Evgenii Mikhailovich al., Naselenie Sovetskogo Soiuza: 1922-1991 (Moscow, 1993)Google Scholar; and V. S. Gel'fand, Naselenie SSSR za 50 let (1941-1990): Statisticheskii sbornik (Perm', 1992). They need to be used carefully. For one, these data are statistical reconstructions on the basis of the prewar censuses of 1937 and 1939, the postwar census of 1959, some incomplete postwar demographic data, and a lot of computation and conjecture. Second, the cohorts of these reconstructions refer to all males presumed alive after the war, which leads to two sources of inaccuracy: it ignores the minority of women among veterans, and it includes men who did not serve in the armed forces during the war. As inaccurate as they may be, these data are one of the few statistical orientations we have.

23 “Zakon o demobilizatsii starshikh vozrastov lichnogo sostava deistvuiushchei armii.” There are a wide range of sources for this law, including but not restricted to Vedomosti Verkhovnogo Soveta SSSR, no. 36 (30June 1945): 1. The law hides the actual birth years. For a reconstruction of the birth years of the diverse demobilization waves, see Edele, “A 'Generation of Victors?'” 62-68.

24 Donchenko, V. N., “Demobilizatsiia Sovetskoi armii i reshenie problem kadrov v pervye poslevoennye gody,” Istoriia SSSR, no. 3 (1970): 98 Google Scholar.

25 Dunham, Vera, “Images of the Disabled, Especially the War Wounded, in Soviet Literature,” in McCagg, William O. and Siegelbaum, Lewis, eds., The Disabled in the Soviet Union: Past and Present, Theory and Practice (Pittburgh, 1989)Google Scholar; Zubkova, Russia after the War, 24; Christopher Burton, “Medical Welfare during Late Stalinism: A Study of Doctors and the Soviet Healdi System, 1945-53” (PhD diss, University of Chicago, 2000); and Fieseler, “Stimmen aus dem gesellschaftlichen Abseits.“

26 The literature on Soviet policies toward POWs is large, growing, and of uneven quality. Essential reading includes Zemskov, V., “Kvoprosu o repatriatsii sovetskikh grazhdan 1944-1951 gg.,“ Istoriia SSSR, no. 4 (1990): 2641 Google Scholar; Zemskov, V., “Repatriatsiia sovetskikh grazhdan v 1945-1946 godakh: Poiraias’ na dokumenty,” Rossiia XXI, no. 5 (1993): 7481 Google Scholar; Zemskov, V., “Repatriatsiia sovetskikh grazhdan i ikh dal'neishaia sud'ba (1944- 1956),” Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniia, no. 5 (1995): 313 Google Scholar; Naumov, V. P., “Sud'ba voennoplennykh i deportirovannykh grazhdan SSSR: Materialy komissii po reabilitatsii zhertv politicheskikh repressii,” Novaia i noveishaia istoriia, no. 2 (1996): 91112 Google Scholar; Naumov, V P. and Reshin, Leonid, “Repression gegen sowjetische Kriegsgefangene und zivile Repatrianten in der UdSSR 1941-1956,” in Kikishkin, Konstantin, Miiller, Klaus-theter, and Wagenlehner, Gunther, eds., the Tragöthe der Gefangenschaft inDeutschland und in der Sowjetunion 1941-1956 (Cologne, 1998), 335–64Google Scholar; Polian, Pavel, Zhertvy dvukh diktatur: Ostarbaitery i voennoplennye v tret'em reikhe i ikh repatriatsiia (Moscow, 1996)Google Scholar; and Postanovlenie TsK KPSS (29 June 1956), no. 898-490s: “Ob ustranenii posledstvii grubykh narushenii zakonnosti v otnoshenii byvshikh voennoplennykh i chlenov ikh semei,” Voenno-istoricheskii zhurnal, 1991, no. 8: 32-34. A good literature review with an extensive bibliography covering work done up to the mid-1990s isjorg Osterloh, Sowjetische Kriegsgefangene 1941-1945 im Spiegel nationaler und internationaler Untersuchungen: Forschungsuberblick und Bibliographie, 2d rev. ed. (Dresden, 1996).

27 Russian-language sources on women in the Red Army include Popova, Nina Vasil'evna, Zlienshchiny strany sotsializma (Moscow, 1947)Google Scholar; Murmantseva, Vera Semenova, Sovetskie zlienshchiny v Velikoi Otechestvennoi voine (Moscow, 1974)Google Scholar; Bochkareva, Ekaterina Ivanovna, Zlienshchiny strany sovetov: Kratkii istoricheskii ocherk (Moscow, 1977)Google Scholar; Galagan, Valentina Iakovlevna, Ratnyi podvig zhenshchin v gody Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny (Kiev, 1986)Google Scholar; Modorov, N. S., V trude i v boiu: Ocherki o zhenshchinakh Gornogo Altaia (Gorno-Altaisk, 1990)Google Scholar.

28 See the discussion of the available statistical evidence in Edele, “A ‘Generation of Victors?'” 345-47.

29 The best book on female veterans is still Svetlana Aleksievich's oral history, U voiny—ne zhenskoe litso: Postednie svideteli (Moscow, 1987; reprint, 1988, 1998), translated as Alexiyevich, Svetlana, War's Unwomanly Face, trans. Hammond, Keith and Lezhneva, Lyudmila (Moscow, 1988)Google Scholar. See also Conze, Susanne and Fieseler, Beate, “Soviet Women as Comrades- in-Arms: A Blind Spot in the History of the War,” in Thurston, Robert W. and Bonwetsch, Bernd, eds., The People's War: Responses to World War II in the Soviet Union (Urbana, 2000), 211–33Google Scholar; Cottam, KazimieraJánina, “Soviet Women in Combat during World War II: The Rear Services, Partisans and Political Workers,” Soviet Armed Forces Reviexu Annual 5 (1981): 275–94Google Scholar; Cottam, KazimieraJánina, Women in War and Resistance: Selected Biographies of Soviet Women Solthers (Nepean, Ontario, 1998)Google Scholar; Engel, Barbara Alpern, “The Womanly Face of War: Soviet Women Remember World War II,” in Dombrowski, Nicole Ann, ed., Women and War in the Twentieth Century: Enlisted with or without Consent (New York, 1999), 138–59Google ScholarPubMed; Pennington, Reina, “Offensive Women: Women in Combat in the Red Army,” in Addison, Paul and Calder, Angus, eds., Time to Kill: The Solther's Experience of War in the West, 1939-1945 (London, 1997), 249—62Google Scholar; and Pennington, Reina, Wings, Women, and War: Soviet Airwomen in World WarllCombat (Lawrence, 2001)Google Scholar.

30 Mitrokhin, Nikolai, “Russkaia partiia: Fragmenty issledovaniia,” Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, no. 3 (2001): 249–51Google Scholar. For an unfriendly portrait of this group, see Alexeyeva, Liudmilla and Goldberg, Paul, The Thaw Generation: Coming of Age in the Post-Stalin Era (Boston, 1990), 2955 Google Scholar. I am indebted to Juliane Fürst and Nikolai Mitrokhin for pointing me toward this fine memoir.

31 “If I would not be a Jew I would be an important person [bol'shoi chelovek], but like that in the army I was only a lieutenant, although I could have been a major.” GARF, f. A-461, op. 1, d. 1169,1. 10 (case file on anti-Soviet agitation). “From now on I am a cosmopolitan, because in the Soviet Union I did not find a home [rodina].” GARF, f. A-461, op. 1, d. 1854,1. 28 (case file on anti-Soviet agitation).

32 Fitzpatrick, Sheila, “Ascribing Class: The Construction of Social Identity in Soviet Russia,“ Journal of Modern History 65, no. 4 (December 1993): 745–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Martin, Terry, The Affirmative Action Empire: Nations and Nationalism in the Soviet Union, 1923-1939 (Ithaca, 2001)Google Scholar; Osokina, Elena, Our Daily Bread: Socialist Distribution and the Art of Survival in Stalin's Russia, 1927-1941, trans, and ed. Transchel, Kate and Bucher, Greta (Armonk, N.Y., 2001)Google Scholar.

33 Voropaev, the disabled colonel in Petr Pavlenko's 1947 novel Happiness, is one of the best-known examples. He first becomes a party agitator—clearly a downward move on the social ladder. After a while he becomes first secretary of the district party committee. See Pavlenko, Petr, Happiness: A Novel, trans. Fineberg, J. (Moscow, 1950), 340–41Google Scholar, 531-32.

34 Belov, Fedor, The History of a Soviet Collective Farm (New York, 1955), vii, 26 Google Scholar, 202.

35 For example, Rigby, T. H., Communist Party Membership in the USSR, 1917-1967 (Princeton, 1968)Google Scholar, chaps. 7, 8,11.

36 “Communist” is used here in the Soviet meaning of the word: it denotes members and candidates for membership in the party, without implying anything about their worldview.

37 “Kolichestvo kommunistov v territorial'nykh i voennykh partorganizatsiiakh na 1 iiulia 1941 g. i na 1 sentiabria 1943 g.,” RGASPI, f. 17, op. 122, d. 56,1. 50.

38 “Kolichestvo kommunistov mobilizovannykh v Krasnuiu Armiiu za vremia voiny po oblastnym, kraevym i respublikanskim p/o [1 July 1941 to 1 July 1945],” RGANI, f. 77, op. 1, d. 4,11. 132-34. The number usually quoted in published sources is 1.6 million, or “more than” 1.6 million. See, for example, M. M. Minasian, ed., Great Patriotic War ofthe Soviet Union, 1941-1945: A General Outline. Abridged translation from the 1970 edition of Velikaia Otechestuennaia voina Sovetskogo Soiuza, 1941-1945 (Moscow, 1974), 462; Rigby, Communist Party Membership, 259.

39 For data on party admissions to military party organizations from the third quarter of 1941 through the first quarter of 1945, RGANI, f. 77, op. 1, d. 3, 11. 52ob., 53ob., 130ob., 131ob., 132ob., 133ob., 210ob., 211ob., 212ob., 213ob.; d. 4,11. 50ob., 51ob., 52ob., 53ob. These data are summarized in Edele, “A ‘Generation of Victors?'” appendix 2. Previously published numbers do not fully agree with this archival evidence. One official Soviet publication gives the number of 3.82 million. See Minasian, ed., Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union, 465. If the war is considered to last from 1 July 1941 to 1 July 1945, the number of full members admitted to military party organizations is 3.97 million. See “Spravochnik ‘KPSS v tsifrakh’ (1948),” RGANI, f. 77, op. 1, d. 17,1. 124.

40 Toman, B. A. and Toman, T. B., “V gody Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny,” in Sviridenko, Iu. P. et al., eds., Politicheskiepartii Rossii: Istoriia i sovremennost'. Uchebnik dlia istoricheskikh i gumanitarnykh fakul'tetov vysshikh uchebnykh zavedenii (Moscow, 2000), 469 Google Scholar, mention at least 2 million. According to Brezhnev this number is 1 million higher. See Minasian, ed., Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union, 461. Three million are also mentioned in Morekhina, G. G., Partiinoe stroitel'stvo v period Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny Sovetskogo Soiuza 1941- 1945 (Moscow, 1986), 374 Google Scholar. These data, however, seem to include partisans.

41 This reconstruction ignores exclusions and reinstatements, but such data will not change the picture too much. According to a report about cadre movements in the Red Army, 75,588 communists were excluded during the war, while 11,559 were reinstated. This leaves us widi net exclusions of 64,029. Even if we allow this number to grow on account of other branches (such as the navy), this number is thus unlikely to increase to more than 0.1 million. This would not change the picture beyond one percentage point, and the error would thus nearly disappear through rounding. For data on exclusions, see I. Shishkin to N. S. Patolichev, “Doklad o sostave i dvizhenii kommunistov Krasnoi Armii za period s 1 iiulia 1941 goda po 1 maia 1946 goda,” RGASPI, f. 17, op. 122, d. 189,11. 201-2.

42 By 1 May 1945, the total number of registered communists was 5.8 million. RGANI, f. 77, op. 1, d. 4,1.128.

43 This is significantly higher than party saturation of the population at large (3 percent in early 1946). Compare the data in Gel'fand, Naselenie SSSR, 54; or Andreev et al., Naselenie Sovetskogo Soiuza, 118-19; with Rigby, Communist Party Membership, 52-53.

44 Weiner, MakingSenseofWar, 43-126.

45 Usually, the claim is that they were all devoted Stalinists. See Weiner, Amir, “Saving Private Ivan: From What, Why, and How?” Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History 1, no. 2 (2000): 305–36CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Merridale, Catherine, “The Collective Mind: Trauma and Shell-Shock in Twentieth-Century Russia, “ Journal of Contemporary History 35, no. 1 (Jánuary 2000): 3955 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gitelman, Zvi, “Soviet Jewish Veterans of World War II Remember: Listening to Oral Histories,“ MichiganjewishHistory 40 (Fall 2000): 215 Google Scholar. Avariant is the claim that they were believing socialists but anti-Stalinists. Seniavskaia, Frontovoepokolenie.

46 Wohl, Generation of 1914, 230; Zubkova. Russia after the War, 105-7, 25-27; and Edele, Mark, “More Than Just Stalinists: The Political Sentiments of Victors 1945-1953,” in Fiirst, Juliane, ed., Late Stalinism in Russia: Society between Reinvention and Reconstruction (London, forthcoming)Google Scholar.

47 For a sketch of the history of the SKW, see Pavlov, ed., Veterany v stroiu.

48 Postanovlenie TsK KPSS i SM SSSR (10 November 1978): “O merakh po dal'neishemu uluchsheniiu.“

49 Cf. Zubkova, Elena, Poslevoennoe sovetskoe obshcliestvo: Politika i povsednevnost’ 1945- 1953 (Moscow, 2000), 37 Google Scholar.

50 Zam. zav. Organizatsionno-instruktorskim otdelom TsK VKP(b) Ratner to Malenkov (1 August 1944), RGASPI, f. 17, op. 122, d. 71,1. 145.

51 “Stenogramma soveshchaniia v Mosoblsoveta u Zam. Pred. Mosoblsoveta tov. Karalova A. P. po voprosu o rabote Sovetov Sodeistviia po obsluzhivaniiu invalidov Otechestvennoi voiny na predpriiatiiakh” (29 September 1944), GARF, f. R-5451, op. 29, d. 128, 11. 4-10ob.

52 Upolnomochennyi KPKpri TsKVKP (b) po Novosibirskoi oblasti I. Kuznetsov to Malenkov: “O vypolnenii postanovlenii pravitel'stva—o trudovom ustroistve i bytovom obsluzhivanii invalidov Otechestvennoi voiny, v gorodakh Novosibirskoi oblasti” (18 Jánuary 1945), RGASPI, f. 17, op. 122, d. 100,1. 115.

53 “Dopolnitel'nyematerialykpis'muvTsKKPSSpo voprosu organizatsii obshchestva byvshikh frontovikov” (addressed to the Central Committee of the Ukrainian Communist Party), GARF, f. R-9541, op. 1, d. 2,11. 2-10.

54 Judging from the lack of reference to assistance committees in the detailed reports of work with war invalids in Russia, Georgia, Belorussia, and Moldavia, these committees had been dissolved by 1950. GARF, f. R-5451, op. 29, d. 457.

55 This development even occurred among the losers of World War II. In fact, veterans' organizations played a vital role in the reconstruction of a stable West German political order. See Lockenour, Jay, Solthers as Citizens: Former Wehrmacht Officers in tlieFederal Republic of Germany, 1945-1955 (Lincoln, 2001)Google Scholar.

56 For benefits, see, for example, Robert G. Bodenger, “Solthers’ Bonuses: A History of Veterans’ Benefits in the United States, 1776-1967” (PhD diss., Pennsylvania State Uniinversity, 1971); Bennett, When Dreams Came True; or Isser Woloch, The French Veteran from the Revolution to the Restoration (Chapel Hill, 1979). For introductions to the benefits of Soviet veterans, see Carol Jacobson, “The Soviet G.I.'s Bill of Rights,” American Review on the Soviet Union 7, no. 1 (1945): 56-63; Sheila Fitzpatrick, “Postwar Soviet Society: The ‘Return to Normalcy,’ 1945-1953,” in Linz, ed., Impact of World War II on the Soviet Union, esp. 136; and Cristann L. Gibson, “Patterns of Demobilization: The US and USSR after World War Two“ (PhD diss., University of Denver, 1983), 163-67,180-82.

57 This right was originally inscribed in the 1939 law of general military service and specified for service personnel fighting in the war in the landmark resolution no. 1931 of 1941. See Zakon (1 September 1939), “O vseobshchei voinskoi obiazannosti,” originally published in Vedomosti VerkhovnogoSoveta SSSR, no. 32 (1939); here quoted from Sbornik zakonov SSSR i ukazov Prezidiuma Verkhovnogo Soveta SSSR 1938 g.-iiun’ 1944 g. (Moscow, 1944), 75-88; and Postanovlenie SNK SSSR (5 August 1941), no. 1931: “O sokhranenii zhiloi ploshchadi za voennosluzhashchimi i o poriadke oplaty zhiloi ploshchadi sem'iami voennosluzhashchikh v voennoe vremia,” GARF, f. R-5446, op. 1, d. 195,11. 88-89.

58 Prikaz VKVSh (24 May 1944), no. 212 and Prikaz VKVSh (13June 1945), no. 284, in Moisei Iosofovich Movshovich, Vysshaia shkola: Osnovnye postanovleniia, prikazy i instruktsii, 2d ed. (Moscow, 1948), 558; “O plate za obuchenie i zachislenie na stipendiiu uchastnikov Otechestvennoi voiny,” Pamiatka demobilizovannym riadovym i serzhantam Krasnoi Armii, 2d enl. ed. (Moscow, 1946), 55-56; and Sheila Fitzpatrick “Social Mobility in the Late Stalin Period: Recruitment into the Intelligentsia and Access to Higher Education, 1945-1953” (unpublished paper, 1978), 12.

59 Both labor and pension law regarding war invalids are too complicated to be discussed here in detail. For introductions, see Burton, “Medical Welfare during Late Stalinism,“ 264-80; and Alan Barenberg, “'For a United, Clear Pension Law': Legislating and Debating Soviet Pensions, 1956-1965” (MA thesis, University of Chicago, 2000). A detailed discussion of both aspects can be found in Edele, “A ‘Generation of Victors?'” 134-39, 364-72.

60 Postanovlenie SNK SSSR (2 July 1942), no. 1089: “O meropriiatiiakh po ukrepleniiu tekhnikumov,” GARF, f. R-5446, op. 1, d. 203,11. 146-48; Postanovlenie SNK SSSR i TsKVKP(b) (5 May 1942), no. 629: “O plane priema v VUZ'y v 1942 godu i meropriiatiiakh po ukrepleniiu vysshikh uchebnykh zavedenii,” GARF, f. R-5446, op. 1, d. 200,11. 233-35.

61 “Pis'mo Narkomkhoza RSFSR (15 April 1943), no. 03-VIII-5,” Pamiatka demobilizovannym, 37; Postanovlenie SNK SSSR (1 May 1944), no. 584: “O predostavlenii l'got individual'nym zaemshchikam po ssudam Sel'khozbanka i Tsekombanka,” GARF, f. R-5446, op. 1, d. 228,11.75-76 (art. lb); Postanovlenie SNKSSSR (29 May 1944): “O meropriiatiia po vosstanovleniiu individual'nogo zhilishchnogo fonda v osvobozhdennykh raionakh i usileniiu individual'nogo zhilishchnogo stroitel'stva v gorodakh i rabochikh poselkakh SSSR,“ Resheniia partii i pravitel'stva po khoziaistvennym voprosam, vol. 3, 205-7 (art. 2); Postanovlenie SNK RSFSR (8 July 1945), no. 403: “O stroitel'stve domov kolkhoznikov, khoziaistvennykh postroek kolkhozov i kul'turno-bytovykh zdanii v raionakh RSFSR, podvergavshikhsia nemetskoi okkupatsii,” GARF, f. A-259, op. 1, d. 99, 1. 29; Postanovlenie Sovet Ministrov RSFSR (11 June 1947), no. 435: “O merakh pomoshchi v stroitel'stve zhilykh domov dlia naseleniia, prozhivaiushchego v zemliankakh,” GARF, f. A-259, op. 1, d. 179, 11. 131-34.

62 Postanovlenie SNK SSSR (21 September 1945), no. 2436: “O meropriiatiiakh po okazaniiu pomoshchi demobilizovannym, sem'iam pogibshikh voinov, invalidam Otechestvennoi voiny i sem'iam voennosluzhashchikh,” GARF, f. R-5446, op. 1, d. 262,11. 294- 300.

63 Ibid.; Postanovlenie SNK SSSR (11 Jánuary 1946), no. 62 as quoted in Rasporiazhenie SNK RSFSR (17 Jánuary 1946), no. 68-r, GARF, f. A-259, op. 1, d. 152,1. 254; Rasporiazhenie SM SSSR (7 November 1946), no. 12692-r, GARF, f. R-5446, op. 48, d. 76, 1.42.

64 Note that this refers to specific, very high forms of decoration and not to all decorations. See Pamiatka demobilizovannym, 48-50. For tuition privileges of Heroes of the Soviet Union, see Prikaz Ministerstva vysshego obrazovaniia SSSR (13 June 1946), no. 176/63: “Ob osvobozhdenii geroev Sovetskogo Soiuza i geroev Sotsialisticheskogo Truda ot platy za obuchenie v srednikh i vysshikh uchebnykh zavedeniiakh i ob ustanovlenii im povyshennogo razmera stipendii,” GARF, f. R-9396, op. 1, d. 31,1. 37. This is a reaction to Postanovlenie SM SSSR (lOJune 1946), no. 1199: “Ob osvobozhdenii Geroev Sovetskogo Soiuza i Geroev Sotsialisdcheskogo Truda ot platy za obuchenie v srednikh i vysshikh uchebnykh zavedeniiakh i ob ustanovlenii im povyshennogo razmera stipendii,“ Sbornik zakonov, ukazov, postanovlenii, reshenii i rasporiazhenii 1946 (Leningrad, 1947), 422.

65 The most relevant legal acts are: Demobilization law of 23 June 1945; ukazy of Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union of 25 September 1945, 20 March 1946, 22 October 1946, and 4 February 1947. They were published (among other places) in Vedomosti Verkhovnogo Soveta SSSR, no. 36 (30June 1945), no. 69 (3 October 1945), no. 10 (28 March 1946), no. 39 (31 October 1946), and no. 6 (12 February 1947).

66 For access to housing construction loans, see Postanovlenie SNK SSSR (21 September 1945), no. 2436: “O meropriiatiiakh.” For the other privileges, with the exception of the one-time monetary payment insdtutionalized in article 6 of the demobilization law, see Postanovlenie SM SSSR (30 September 1946), no. 2220: “Ob uporiadochenii ispol'zovaniia v promyshlennosti, na stroitel'stve i transporte repatriantov—byvshikh voennoplennykh i voennoobiazannykh i s rasprostranenii na nikh l'got, predusmotrennykh dlia demobilizovannykh,” GARF, f. R-5446, op. 1, d. 285,11. 240-41.

67 On the centrality of the category by the 1980s, see “Uchastniki voiny (L'goty uchastnikam voiny),” in Velikaia Otechestvennaia voina, 1941-1945: Entsiklopediia (Moscow, 1985), 751.

68 Only a one-time monetary payment was institutionalized. Ukaz Prezidiuma Verkhovnogo Soveta SSSR (12 February 1948), no. 111/10: “Ob ocherednoi demobilizatsii lichnogo sostava vooruzhennykh sil,” GARF, f. R-7523, op. 40, d. 45,11. 1-2, art. 3.

69 Burton, “Medical Welfare during Late Stalinism,” 268; Barenberg, “'For a United, Clear Pension Law,'” 7.

70 Postanovlenie SNKSSSR (20Jánuary 1943), no. 73: “O merakh po trudovomu ustroistvu invalidov Otechestvennoi voiny,” GARF, f. R-5446, op. 1, d. 210,11.162-63. These rules were reinforced by a resolution of 18 November 1945 and were still on the books in 1948. See Postanovlenie SNKSSSR (18 November 1945), no. 2928: “O vyplate pensii rabotaiushchim pensioneram,” GARF, f. R-5446, op. 1, d. 266, 1. 309; Prikaz Narkomsobesa RSFSR (21 November 1945), no. 391: “O poriadke vyplaty pensii rabotaiushchim pensioneram,“ Material'noe obespechenie pri invalidnosti, starosti, za vyslugu let, 435.

71 Postanovlenie SM SSSR (4 October 1948), no. 3772: “Ob utverzhdenii Instruktsii o poriadke vyplaty pensii invalidam tret'ei gruppy, obespechivaemym organami sotsial'nogo obespecheniia,” GARF, f. R-5446, op. 1, d. 347,11. 219-20, art. 4; “Instruktsiia o poriadke vyplaty pensii invalidam III gruppy, obespechivaemym organami sotsial'nogo obespecheniia (utverzhdeniia Post. SM SSSR ot 4 oktiabria 1948 no. 3772),” GARF, f. R-5446, op. 1, d. 347, 11. 221-22, art. 1-3. On the prewar arrangements, see Postanovlenie SNK SSSR (16 July 1940), no. 1269: “O pensiiakh voennosluzhashchikh riadovogo i mladshego nachal'stvuiushchego sostava srochnoi sluzhby i ikh sem'iam,” SPSSSR, 1940, no. 19, st. 465 (pp. 641-44).

72 This was first noted by Gabor T. Rittersporn, Stalinist Simplifications and Soviet Complications: Social Tensions and Political Conflicts in the USSR, 1933-1953 (Chur, 1991), 270- 71, 313n232.

73 Ukaz Prezidiuma Verkhovnogo Soveta SSSR (10 September 1947): “O l'gotakh i preimushchestvakh, predostavliaemykh nagrazhdennym ordenami i medaliami SSSR,“ Pravda, 22 November 1947, 1; Ukaz Prezidiuma Verkhovnogo Soveta SSSR (16 December 1947): “O vnesenii izmenenii zakonodatel'stva SSSR v sviazi s izdaniem Ukaza Prezidiuma Verkhovnogo Soveta SSSR ot 10 sentiabria 1947 goda ‘O l'gotakh i preimushchestvakh, predostavliaemykh nagrazhdennym ordenami i medaliami SSSR,'” Vedomosti Verkhovnogo Soveta SSSR, no. 45 (26 December 1947): 2; “Obshchee polozhenie ob ordenakh Soiuza SSR” (7 May 1936), Sobraniezakonov i rasporiazhenii Raboche-Krest'ianskogo Pravitel'stva SSSR, no. 24 (28 May 1936), st. 220b, p. 359. The tuition exemption for Heroes of the Soviet Union had been legislated by Postanovlenie SMSSSR (10 June 1946), no. 1199. It was not cancelled and still remained on the books in 1948: Movshovich, ed., Vysshaia shkola, 551. The privileges connected to the Order of Honor were legislated in “Statut ordena Slavy,“ Sbornik zakonov SSSR i ukazov Prezidiuma Verkhovnogo Soveta SSSR 1938g.-iiun’ 1944 g. (Moscow, 1944), 263-64, art. 7 a-v. The same group regained tax privileges after Stalin's death: A legal act of 1953, which was still in force in 1991, freed them from agricultural tax: Zakon (8 August 1953): “O sel'skokhoziaistvennom naloge,” Dziuba, V. A., ed., L'goty veteranam voiny, voinam-internatsionalistam i drugim kategoriiam grazhdan SSSR: Sbornik normativnykh aktov (Moscow, 1991), 1112 Google Scholar.

74 See the case file GARF, f. A-461, op. 1, d. 125,1. 16. See also the collective letter to Stalin and Shvernik from the workers at several Moscow enterprises asking for reinstatement of (and an increase in!) the privileges for Heroes of the Soviet Union in 1949: Zubkova, E. Iu. et al., eds., Sovetskaia zhizn’ 1945-1953 (Moscow, 2003), 329–32Google Scholar.

75 Victory Day (9 May) was declared a non-working holiday on 8 May 1945: Ukaz Prezidiuma Verkhovnogo Soveta SSSR (8 May 1945): “Ob ob“iavlenii 9 maia praznikom pobedy,” Vedomosti Verkhovnogo Soveta SSSR, no. 26 (1945) as quoted in Sbornik zakonov SSSR i ukazov Prezidiuma Verkhovnogo Soveta SSSR 1938-1975, 4 vols. (Moscow, 1975), 3:55. In December 1947 it was declared a regular working day again, and the free day was moved to 1 Jánuary (New Year's Day). The full text of this decision was never published. Short notices appeared under the title “V prezidiume Verkhovnogo Soveta SSSR” in Pravda, 24 December 1947, 1; and Vedomosti Verkhovnogo Soveta SSSR, no. 45 (26 December 1947): 1.

76 Naumov, “Sud'ba voennoplennykh,” 102-4; Naumov and Reshin, “Repression,“ 346. See also Elliot, Mark R., Pawns of Yalta: Soviet Refugees and America's Role in Their Repatriation (Urbana, 1982), 209–10Google Scholar; Belov, History of a Soviet Collective Farm, 68.

77 Zemskov, “K voprosu o repatriatsii,” 38-39.

78 Rasporiazhenie SM SSSR (12 June 1947), no. 7240rs, GARF, f. R-5446, op. 49a, d. 62,1. 7. The directive quotes the earlier resolutions: Postanovlenie SM SSSR (13 April 1946), no. 843-342: “O vozvrashchenii na rodinu repatriantov—latyshei, estontsev, i litovtsev“; Postanovlenie SM SSSR (2 October 1946), no. 2229-917: “O vozvrashchenii na rodinu repatriirovannykh gruzin, armian i azerbaidzhantsev.” For an intervention by Fillipp Ivanovich Golikov that was part of the process of broadening the application to all nationals, see Golikov to Viacheslav Molotov (14 May 1947, forwarded to MVD on 5 June 1947; osobaia papka Molotova), GARF, f. R-9401, op. 2-s ch, d. 172,1. 322. For the positive answer of MVD chief Sergei Kruglov to Molotov (5 June 1947), see ibid., 1. 324.

79 Postanovlenie SM SSSR (30 September 1946), no. 2220: “Ob uporiadochenii.“

80 Beate Fieseler, “Innenpolitik der Nachkriegszeit 1945-1953,” in Stefan Plaggenborg, ed., Handbuch der Geschichte Russlands. Vol. 5, 1945-1991: VomEnde des Zweiten Weltkriegs bis zum Zusammenbruch der Sotujetunion, 1st partial vol. (Stuttgart, 2002), 47. See also Pavel Polian, Deportiert nachHause: Sowjetische Kriegsgefangene im “Dritten Reich” und ihreRepatriierung (Munich, 2001), 168–70.

81 See report to Kliment Voroshilov (not after 23 February 1948), GARF, f. R-5446, op. 50a, d. 6723,1. 40; and report of the head of the repatriation administration of Primorskii krai polkovnik Lomtev to the head of Glavdal'flot Korobtsev and to the assistant of the repatriation plenipotentiary of SM SSSR polkovnik Kiselev (not after 5 Jánuary 1948), GARF, f. R-9526-s ch, op. 1-s ch, d. 617,1.16.

82 Report to Voroshilov (16 September 1947), GARF, f. R-5446, op. 49a, d. 16,1. 43.

83 See GARF, f. R-9526-s ch, op. 1-s ch, d. 617,11.16-17.

84 “Repatriirovannye sovetskie grazhdane ustroeny na rabotu,” Pravda, 26 October 1946, 2. The article explicitly mentioned former POWs and their rights according to the demobilization law.

85 See Golikov to Andrei Zhdanov (9 June 1947), RGASPI, f. 17, op. 122, d. 212, 11.42-43.

86 See, for example, D'iakov, Nikolai Fedorovich, Mechenye: Dokumental'nye zapiski byvshego soldata, in Mitrokhin, Nikolai, ed., Dokumentypo istorii dvizheniia inakomysliashchikh (Moscow, 1999)Google Scholar. I am indebted to the editor of this important memoir for bringing it to my attention.

87 Zemskov, “K voprosu o repatriatsii,” 40; Naumov, “Sud'ba voennoplennykh,“ 104-5; Polian, Deportiert nach Hause, 187; Elliot, Pawns of Yalta, 210.

88 Naumov and Reshin, “Repression,” 351-52.

89 Belov, History of a Soviet Collective Farm, 69.

90 Golikov to Zhdanov (June 1947), RGASPI, f. 17, op. 122, d. 212,11. 42-43.

91 GARF, f. R-9526, op. 1-s ch., d. 617,1.161. This intervention produced few results.

92 Report of the head of the repatriation administration of the republic of Estonia to the Golikov administration (31 Jánuary 1949), GARF, f. R-9526-s ch, op. 1-s ch, d. 617, 11. 24-25.

93 Naumov, “Sud'ba voennoplennykh,” 105-6.

94 GARF, f. R-7523, op. 55, d. 49,1. 8.

95 Prokuror SSSR K. Gorshenin to Zam. Predsedatelia SNK SSSR V. M. Molotov (8 August 1945), GARF, f. R-8131, op. 22, d. 103,1. 76.

96 Weiner, Making Sense of War, 43-126.

97 Zubkova, Russia after the War, 27-28.

98 On veterans’ networks in the army, see Kolkowicz, Roman, The Soviet Military and the Communist Party (Princeton, 1967), 224–81Google Scholar. On veterans in the party, see Weiner, Making Sense of War, 43-81. For a good illustration, see Boris Galin, “Ocherki nashikh dnei: Vodnom naselennom punkte (rasskazpropagandista),“Afovy” mir24, no. 11 (1947): 135-217.

99 For an example, see Tanich, Mikhail, Igrala muzyka v sadu… (Moscow, 2000) , 89 Google Scholar .

100 Zubkova, Russia after the War, 24-25. Soviet veterans were not the only ones to decry this unmaking of the “frontline brotherhood.” German veterans after World War I felt much the same. See Remarque, Erich Maria, Der Wegzuriick (Berlin, 1931)Google Scholar.

101 This Deβnition of “connectedness” is taken from Rogers Brubaker and Cooper, Frederick, “Beyond ‘Identity,'” Theory and Society 29 (2000): 1921 Google Scholar.

102 Ibid., 20.

103 This much-quoted term is of course Benedict Anderson's. See Anderson, , Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, rev. ed. (London, 1991)Google Scholar.

104 A major depository for such letters is the reception room of the chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet. GARF, f. R-7523, op. 55.

105 Zav. Priemnoi P. Savel'ev, “Informatsionnaia svodka o pis'makh i zaiavleniiakh byvshikh voennoplennykh, napravlennykh na rabotu v promyshlennosti,” GARF, f. R-7523, op. 55, d. 10, 1. 25; Prokuror SSSR K. Gorshenin to Zam. Predsedatelia SNK. SSSR V. M. Molotov (8 August 1945), GARF, f. R-8131, op. 22, d. 103,1. 76.

106 Zav. orginstruktorskim otdelom Voronezhskogo obkoma VKP(b) to zav. organizatsionno- instruktorskim otdelom TsK VKP(b) M. A. Shamberg: “Informatsiia o politicheskom nastroenii trudiashchikhsia Voronezhskoi oblasti v sviazi s provedeniem prazdnika pobedy, zaversheniem razgroma i bezogovorochnoi kapituliatsii Germanii” (22 May 1945), RGASPI, f. 17, op. 88, d. 469,1.18.

107 Report in Stalin's special files (27 Jánuary 1946), GARF, f. R-9401, op. 2, d. 134, 1. 186.

108 Zav. Priemnoi Predsedatelia Prezidiuma Verkhovnogo Soveta SSSR Savel'ev: “Informatsionnaia svodka o pis'makh, postupaiushchikh v Priemnuiu Predsedatelia Prezidiuma Verkhovnogo Soveta SSSR, po voprosu o vozvrate domov raskulachennym v period sploshnoi kollektivizatsii i likvidatsii kulachestva kak klassa” (23 May 1946), GARF, f. R-7523, op. 55, d. 10,11. 34-62.

109 For some examples, see Zam. Zav. Priemnoi Predsedatelia Prezidiuma Verkhovnogo Soveta SSSR Uvarov: “Prilozhenie k statisticheskoi spravke o zhalobakh i zaiavleniiakh postupivshikh v priemnuiu s 1/1 po 1/IX 1945 goda” (18 September 1946), GARF, f. R-7523, op. 55, d. 11,1. 229; Zav. sektorom obshchego otdela TsK KPSS Shcheblykin and referent otdela Barinov to TsK KPSS (21 May 1956), RGANI, f. 5, op. 30, d. 186,11. 31-32; Zav. sektorom pisem obshchego otdela TsK KPSS Shcheblykin to TsK KPSS: “O pis'makh, postupivshikh v TsK KPSS ot ofitserov, uvol'naiemykh iz riadov Sovetskoi armii v zapas“ (November 1955), RGANI, f. 5, op. 30, d. 135,1. 76.

110 Zav. organizatsionno-instruktorskim otdelom Novosibirskogo Obkoma VKP(b) V. Butin to Upr. po proverka partorganov, Zav. otdelom partiinoi informatsii tov. Pozdniak I. I.: “Informatsiia o politicheskikh nastroeniiakh kolkhoznikov v sviazi s provedeniem v zhizn’ Ukaza Prezidiuma Verkhovnogo Soveta SSSR ot 2 iiunia 1948 goda” (21 June 1948), RGASPI, f. 17, op. 122, d. 306,1. 34. The veteran who uttered this phrase was deported as a “parasite” in 1948.

111 Zav. Priemnoi Predsedatelia Prezidiuma Verkhovnogo Soveta SSSR P. Savel'ev: “Informatsiia o khodataistvakh, postupaiushchikh v Priemnuiu po voprosu spisaniia zadolzhennosti po denezhnym ssudam, vydavaemym Kommunal'nym i Sel'skokhoziaistvennymi bankami sem'iam pogibshikh voinov, invalidam Otechestvennoi voiny i nuzhdaiushchimsia sem'iam voennosluzhashchikh na stroitel'stvo i vosstanovlenie zhilykh domov” (14 August 1946), GARF, f. R-7523, op. 55, d. 10,1. 122.

112 In the United States, Japanese-Hawaiian and Mexican-American World War II veterans used a similar notion of reciprocity between shed blood and postwar entitlement in their struggles for political recognition and social justice. See Kelly, John D., “Diaspora and World War, Blood and Nation in Fiji and Hawai'i,” Public Culture, no. 7 (1995): 475– 97CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Ramos, Henry A.J., The American GI Forum: In Pursuit of the Dream, 1948-1983 (Houston, Texas, 1998)Google Scholar.

113 For entitlement and privileges of veterans in the Roman republic and empire, see, for example, Brunt, P. A., “The Army and the Land in the Roman Revolution,” TheFall of the Roman Republic and Related Essays (New York, 1988), 240–75Google Scholar; and Link, Stefan, Konzepte der Privilegierung romischerVeteranen (Stuttgart, 1989)Google Scholar.

114 Sanborn, Joshua, Drafting the Russian Nation: Military Conscription, Total War, and Mass Politics, 1905-1925 (DeKalb, 2003), 5, 20, 4955, 62, 107Google Scholar.

115 von Hagen, Mark, Solthers in the Proletarian Dictatorship: The Red Army and the Soviet Socialist State, 1917-1930 (Ithaca, 1990), 331 Google Scholar.

116 Emily E. Pyle, “Village Social Relations and the Reception of Solthers’ Family Aid Policies in Russia, 1912-1921” (PhD diss., University of Chicago, 1997).

117 See, for example, Fitzpatrick, Sheila, “Supplicants and Citizens: Public Letter-Writing in Soviet Russia in the 1930s,” Slavic Review 55, no. 1 (Spring 1996): 96 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

118 For a collection of propaganda material on the material assistance provided to the families of serving solthers, see “Stat'i i doklady po radio i v pechati sotrudnikov Upravleniia gosobespecheniia na temu ‘Zabota o sem'iakh frontovikov,'” GARF, f. A-415, op. 1, d. 45 (1944,134 pages).

119 Weiner, Making Sense of War, 69, 70, 121. On the postwar purge in general, see 82-126.

120 “Iskupili svoiu vinu v boiakh za Rodinu i na trudovom fronte.” Note that frontline service was not the only way to “buy off one's guilt.” Wartime as well as postwar civilian labor could serve the same function.

121 “Otchet o rabote Partkollegii Komissii partiinogo kontrolia pri TsK VKP(b) za iiun’ 1939—1946 gody,” Nezaverennaia kopiia,” RGANI, f. 6, op. 6, d. 3,1. 6. For individual examples, see the entire report.

122 Naumov and Reshin, “Repression gegen sowjetische Kriegsgefangene und zivile Repatrianten,” 343.

123 Barnes, Steven A., “All for the Front, All for Victory! The Mobilization of Forced Labor in the Soviet Union during World War Two,” International Labor and Working-Class History 58 (Fall 2000): 242 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

124 Zemskov, V. N., “'Kulatskaia ssylka’ nakanune i v gody Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny,” Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniia, no. 2 (1992): 1621 Google Scholar; Zemskov, V. N., “Sud'ba ‘kulatskoi ssylki’ v poslevoennoe vremia,” Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniia, no. 8 (1992): 18 Google Scholar, 20; and Zemskov, V. N., “Sud'ba'kulatskoi ssylki’ (1930-1954 gg.),” Otechestvennaia istoriia, no. 1 (1994): 130–31Google Scholar, 133. Note that not all sons of kulaks were drafted into the army during the war. The NKVD reported that 104,866 possible draftees (men of draft age who had not been heads of households before de-kulakization) lived in the special settlements. Sotsiobgicheskie issledovaniia, no. 2 (1992): 16-18.

125 Zav. Priemnoi Predsedatelia Prezidiuma Verkhovnogo Soveta SSSR P. Savel'ev: “Informatsionnaia svodka o pis'makh, postupaiushchikh v Priemnuiu Predsedatelia Prezidiuma Verkhovnogo Soveta SSSR.“

126 Brooks, Jeffrey, Thank You, Comrade Stalin! Soviet Public Culture from Revolution to Cold War (Princeton, 2000), 199 Google Scholar, 201.

127 On levels of motivation, see Chukhrai, Grigorii, Moia voina (Moscow, 2001), 281–82Google Scholar. On the “frontline brotherhood,” see Joshua A. Sanborn, “Brothers under Fire: The Development of a Front-Line Culture in the Red Army 1941-1943” (MA thesis, University of Chicago, 1993).

128 Edele, Mark, “Paper Solthers: The World of the Solther Hero according to Soviet Wartime Posters,“ Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas 47, no. 1 (1999): 89108 Google Scholar.

129 Kirschenbaum, Lisa A., “'Our City, Our Hearths, Our Families': Local Loyalties and Private Life in Soviet World War II Propaganda,” Slavic Review 59, no. 4 (Winter 2000): 825–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On wartime propaganda, see also Stites, Richard, ed., Culture and Entertainment in Wartime Russia (Bloomington, 1995)Google Scholar.

130 Fitzpatrick, “Ascribing Class“; and Osokina, Our Daily Bread. On Stalin's Soviet Union as a “service state,” see also Hellie, Richard, “The Structure of Modern Russian History: Toward a Dynamic Model,” Russian History 4, no. 1 (1977): 122 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

131 Postanovlenie TsK KPSS i SM SSSR (10 November 1978): “O merakh po dal'neishemu uluchsheniiu.“

132 Geyer, “Ein Vorbote des Wohlfahrtstaates.“

133 Cf. Weiner, Amir, “The Making of a Dominant Myth: The Second World War and the Construction of Political Identities within the Soviet Polity,” Russian Review 55, no. 4 (October 1996): 638–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

134 Kotkin, Stephen, Magnetic Mountain: Stalinism as a Civilization (Berkeley, 1995)Google Scholar.

135 Postanovlenie TsK KPSS i SM SSSR (10 November 1978): “O merakh po dal'neishemu uluchsheniiu.“

136 On the SKW, see Pavlov, Veterany v stroiu; on war memory and the cult of the war, see Bonwetsch, “'Ich habe an einem vollig anderen Krieg teilgenommen'” and Tumarkin, The Living and the Dead, 134.