industries. As one Soviet leader has described it, the operation was huge and successful.

The first six months (second half of 1941) of the Patriotic War is characterized by the huge transfer of the productive forces of the U.S.S.R. to the east under the guidance of Stalin's State Committee for Defense. Millions of people moved, hundreds of enterprises were shifted, tens of thousands of machine tools, rolling mills, presses, beetles, turbines and motors. In about three months in 1941 over 1,360 large enterprises, mainly military ones, were evacuated to the eastern regions of the U.S.S.R. Of these, 455 were moved to the Urals, 210 to Western Siberia, and 250 to Middle Asia and Kazakhstan.18

The evacuation of industry carried out in the early chaotic months of the war, at a time when armies were also being moved, was hardly as successful as it was officially proclaimed to be. The obvious purpose of exaggerating the scope of the evacuation was to minimize the importance of the military supplies coming from the West and to present the victory over Germany as a purely Soviet achievement.1o

The highly official Large Soviet Encyclopedia as late as 1952 likewise disregarded foreign aid in its description of the Soviet economy during the war:

Thousands of kolkhozes and sovkhozes [state farms] were transferred to more distant regions. Millions of head of cattle were driven. For the evacuation of the equipment, about 1,500,000 railroad cars were used. Measures were taken to augment the output of coal, oil, and ore in the eastern regions of the country, to increase the production of electrical energy and ferrous and non-ferrous metals; new defense plants were built. In the U.S.S.R. a well-organized and fast-growing war economy was organized the material basis for the supply of the military forces. . . .

The Soviet army, relying on the support of the entire people, regularly received in increasing quantities, armaments, ammunition, food, and equipment.20

Actually the United States lend-lease shipments to Russia, from the start of the war to September 30, 1946, amounted to $11,200,000,000.21

13 Ibid., p. 41.

1o In his book on the Soviet war economy, Nikolai Voznesenski, member of the Politburo and a right-hand man to Stalin (he was executed in 1950), omits specific mention of the United States lend-lease operation and asserts only (p. 74) that foreign supplies amounted to 4 percent of the total, a palpably false statement.

20

Bolshaya Sovetskaya Entsiklopediya (Large Soviet Encyclopedia) (2d ed.; Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe Nauchnoe Izdatelstvo "Bolshaya Sovetskaya Entsiklopediya” (State Scientific Publishing House "The Large Soviet Encyclopedia")), vol. VII (1951), pp. 165, 179.

21

President Harry S. Truman, 23d Report to Congress on Lend-Lease Operations for the Period Ended Sept. 30, 1946, filed Dec. 27, 1946, Department of State Publication 2707 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office), p. 27.

3. The Siege of Leningrad

The German armies advanced along a broad front extending from the Baltic to the Black Sea. They reached Leningrad in October 1941 and Moscow in November. While they succeeded in laying siege to Leningrad, they were forced to retreat by the battle at the gates of Moscow. The offensive was resumed, however, in the spring of 1942 and within a few months German armies had reached the Caucasus and the Volga. The battle of Stalingrad, which took place in the winter of 1942-43, about 18 months after the start of the war, and after abundant supplies from the West had reached Russia, was the turning point of the war. The Germans were thrown back and, in the next 2 years, during which they sustained enormous losses, retreated into Germany.

Having approached the city of Leningrad, the German armies did not try to take it; Hitler's plan was rather to starve the city and then destroy it by artillery fire. The German goal was to destroy all vestiges of Russia's former greatness. The first part of the German program was largely attained in the winter of 1941-42, when supplies of food and fuel to this city of 3 million population were almost completely cut off by the German siege.

With the approach of cold weather industrial enterprises came to a standstill. There were practically no transportation facilities in the city; bath-houses were closed; during the 1941-42 winter seven or eight bathhouses were occasionally heated. Food was scarce. In the majority of houses window panes were smashed by the blasts, the windows were boarded up with planks and plywood, inside the apartments it was dark and cold.

Over 100,000 people from the Baltic states, Pskov, Luga, Petrozavodsk, the Karelian isthmus and the workers' settlements took refuge in Leningrad..

In July-August [1941] not more than 400,000 were evacuated into the interior, although two or three times that number should have been.... . . . In the end 2,544,000 civilians lived in the blockaded city, among them about 400,000 children. In addition, in the suburban regions (within the blockade ring) there remained 343,000.22

Therefore the food rations had to be cut severely. The first reduction was put into effect on September 2, 1941:

From this day on workers were getting 600, employees 400, dependents and children 300 grams [1 ounce 28.3 grams] of bread daily. . . .23

23 D. V. Pavlov, Leningrad v Blokade, 1941 god (Leningrad Under the Blockade, 1941) (Moscow: Voennoe Izdatelstvo Ministerstva Oborony SSSR (War Publishing House of the Defense Ministry of the USSR), 1958), pp. 36, 41, 42.

38 Ibid., p. 45.

Ten days later

... Workers started to receive 500, employees and children 300, and dependents 250 grams of bread.24

On November 13 new rations were introduced:

workers were allotted 300 grams of bread daily, employees, dependents, and children up to 12 years, 150 grams. . .

A week later

25

workers started to get 250 grams of bread daily, employees, dependents and children, 125, the military of the first line, 500 and of the rear lines 300 grams of bread.26

December was the worst month of the blockade

Very little bread was distributed, almost no fats were allotted to the adult population and it was not substituted by anything else. Other food items were distributed in miniscule quantities.27

Within 3 months the inevitable starvation and famine set in.

The mass deaths started at the end of November. The outward signs in the life of the city were the appearance in the streets of sleds of all kinds, but mostly children's Finnish sleds, loaded with corpses. As a rule, two sleds were bound together in order to provide sufficient length. The corpses were wrapped in sheets, blankets, mats, and rags. Every day more and more of these sleds were seen: during one period (the end of December and beginning of January) such sleds moved in unbroken lines through the main streets. Leningrad was covered with snow in those days. Nobody removed it.28

There were privileged groups in the city who enjoyed priority in the distribution of food. These were the top leaders of the party and police and military units. The rest of the population appeared doomed. People [in Leningrad] did everything they could to avert death, but death came. . . . There was only one thing left: to die quietly in their frozen dwellings. . . . The well-fed units of the NKVD were on the alert, and arrests of suspects did not cease, not even at times when there were 30,000 deaths a day.29

The starving population resorted to desperate measures:

... In November, all cats were consumed. Standing on a rationcard line, I unintentionally overheard a conversation between some students. They felt that cat's meat was pleasant, it reminded them of rabbit meat, but one thing was painful, namely, to kill the cat: it defends itself

desperately; if not carefully planned, the killing of a cat can result in one's being badly scratched. Later I did not hear any such talk-there were no more cats to be killed. In December, rats, mice, and street birds were being eaten.80

In late December 1941 and January of 1942

... At the cemeteries and in the areas around them corpses were .piled up; nobody had the strength to bury them. The grave-diggers, lured by promises of bread, started digging the graves, but often died in the process: they had miscalculated their strength.

In the streets women with hardly enough strength to move were seen carrying corpses. Some never reached the cemetery; they died on the way.31

81

In the subsequent months ways were found of bringing some food into the city. Some inhabitants had been evacuated and, as a result of the deaths and the evacuations, the population had been substantially reduced. During 1942 and 1943 the daily ration of the civilian population of Leningrad was 125 grams (41⁄2 ounces) of bread; in the Soviet army stationed in and around the city the ration was 250 grams.

The siege continued until January 1944, when the Germans started to withdraw. How many died during the siege remains a well-guarded

secret.

... Though official Soviet figures are lacking, it can be deducted from unofficial estimates of evacuees and survivors that the total number of deaths in Leningrad during this period was somewhere between 530,000 and 1,000,000.32

Other estimates and studies, however, arrive at higher figures. Professor K. Kripton, who spent the worst period of the blockade in Leningrad, states, on the basis of reports on food rationing, that "about 2,000,000 men died in the first year of the siege.'

99 33

After the war the Leningrad Party Committee established a "Defense Museum" to commemorate the blockade era and gather pertinent material.

At present the city has opened an exhibition "The Heroic Defense of Leningrad," unprecedented in its historical-military and psychological importance. The most moving part of the exhibition is the section "The Hunger Blockade of Leningrad," containing exhibits and statistics which draw a picture of the life of the people of Leningrad during their most tragic period.

84

30 Ibid., p. 185.

Ibid., p. 193.

"Leon Gouré, Soviet Administrative Controls During the Siege of Leningrad (Santa Monica: The Rand Corp., 1958), RM-2075, pp. 19, 20.

"Kripton, op. cit., p. 226.

34

Konstantin Fedin, "Svidanie s Leningradom," Zapiski 1944 (Rendezvous with Leningrad, Notes 1944), in Novyi Mir (New World), Moscow, No. 4-5, 1944, p. 45.

Although the fervent patriotism and self-sacrifice of the population were presented, Stalin's alleged personal achievements in the Leningrad episode were not and could not be emphasized, whereas the deeds of some local Communist leaders were stressed.

the museum was created at the time when the cult of personality was at its apex, when many heroic deeds of the people of Leningrad were undeservedly attributed to single individuals. It would not have been difficult to correct the errors generated by the cult of personality even then, in 1949, and to preserve the museum, but sad as it is, it was decided otherwise.

35

and the museum was closed.

In 1957 a new "Museum of the History of Leningrad" was opened which, to some degree, rehabilitates its predecessor, victim of the "cult of personality."

4. Defeatist Trends

Living conditions, which deteriorated in all the warring countries, became especially hard in Russia because, first, the Germans occupied a large agricultural area; second, the Soviet army had a priority on all kinds of goods; and, third, millions of peasants had been drafted. With an army to be fed and clothed, the civilian population suffered badly.

There is no doubt that most city dwellers in Russia are going hungry on the rations they are getting. When ordinary people manage to buy a few grams of bread, they often cannot resist the temptation to gnaw it long before they get home-in street cars, trolley buses, along the sidewalks and at the opera. Even Government officials cannot control themselves at the sight of food. At receptions they dive into the foods as if they had not eaten for days.

.

...

.. Doctors .. maintain that most adult civilians have lost about 15 lb. in the past year.*

36

It was only natural that the black market, with its high prices and unhealthy competition, should flourish and expand everywhere:

Though barter is punishable by death, thousands of Russians have resorted to it as one way of getting a few things they need, and the Government has closed its eyes to most of the deals. A pound of bread is worth a pair of half soles, while a bottle of Vodka can be exchanged for a peck of potatoes.37

The Red Army was better supplied, especially after shipments of food, clothing and shoes began to arrive from abroad. By the end of 1942

The Red Army man is as well equipped as any soldier in the world. His uniform is made of pure wool and his heavy leather boots would last a

* Walter Graebner, "Moscow Today," Life. vol. XIV, No. 2 (January 11, 1943),