136

p Vladimir Mayakovsky, the Soviet poet, expressed the patriotic duty of writers and artists in the following lines:

p I want that the pen be equated to the bayonet.

p In the war, the pen of writers and poets, the brush of the artist, the sculptor’s chisel and the cameraman’s equipment were so effective a weapon that they could quite legitimately be equated to bayonet and rifle. Besides, many artists and writers were as adept with the bayonet and rifle as they were with the usual tools of their trade. They fought in the battlelines, some of them as-soldiers, some as commanders, some as political officers, and many as war correspondents and cameramen.

p More than a thousand Soviet writers joined the army, including M. Bazhan, A. Bezymensky, P. Brovka, V. Vishnevsky, A. Gaidar, V. Grossman, Ye. Dolmatovsky, A. Korneichuk, V. Kozhevnikov, K. Krapiva, Yu. Krymov, M. Lynkov, S. Mikhalkov, P. Pavlenko, Ye. Petrov, A. Prokofyev, V. Sayanov, M. Svetlov, K. Simonov, L. Slavin, V. Stavsky, A. Surkov, M. Tank, A. Tvardovsky, N. Tikhonov and M. Sholokhov; also many composers, including A. Alexandrov and V. Muradeli, and artists P. Sokolov-Skalya, P. Shukhmin, B. Prorokov, and actors K. Baiseitova, Ye. Gogoleva, G. Yura, etc.  [136•1 

137

p As many as 275 men of letters gave their lives for the freedom and independence of their socialist country. Five hundred writers were decorated with war Orders and medals, ten being honoured with the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.  [137•1 

p Writers performed numerous feats of valour. The life and death of those who fell in battle is impregnated in the memory of the Soviet people. Yu. Krymov died in covering the withdrawal of his squad with a machine-gun. A. Gaidar faced nazi bullets to warn his partisan friends of danger. B. Lapin would not follow the others out of a nazi trap, staying behind with his mortally wounded friend Z. Khatsrevin, to face certain death. D. Altausen, another .writer, refused a place in an airplane evacuating members of a trapped unit arid, having made h’is decision, died fighting. A. Lebedev met his death with the rest of a submarine crew. And the fortitude of Mussah Jalil, his gallant stand in a Gestapo prison, is known the world over.

p But the exploit of the Soviet writers was literary, as well as martial. When the hour of war struck, they provided the Soviet people—men at the front and workers in the rear—with what they keenly needed: the militant word. It was hard for the average Soviet men and women, peaceful by nature, to grasp the gravity of the situation, to acquire a burning hatred of the enemy. A flaming word was needed to reach the heart and bring home that the country had to be defended to the last, imbue one and all with the idea of a sacred patriotic war. And the task was splendidly accomplished by Soviet writers, poets, playwrights, journalists and cameramen.

p The first wartime issue of Pravda, dated June 23, 1941, published verse by Alexei Surkov and Nikolai Aseyev. The following day Izvestia printed V. Lebedev-Kumach’s "Holy War”, a poem of deep wrath which, put to music by composer A. Alexandrov, became, in effect, the anthem of the Great Patriotic War. Ilya Ehrenburg made his wartime debut in Krasnaya £vezda on June 26, and Alexei Tolstoy in Pravda on June 27. The deeply patriotic articles by Alexei Tolstoy, Mikhail Sholokhov and Alexander Fadeyev, the incisive features by Ilya Ehrenburg and the inspired reports of Nikolai Tikhonov from beleaguered Leningrad, all Soviet literature, all art, the creativity of thousands of writers, 138 artists and musicians, the men and women of Soviet culture, the culture of all the peoples of the USSR, aroused in the people a hatred of the invader, inspiring courage and steeling their will.

p Defence became the main theme of all literature, which turned to past history, to examples of resistance. Leonid Leonov wrote: "In a difficult hour ask them, those stern Russian people who put our country together bit by bit, and they will tell you how to comport yourself, even when alone among a multitude of enemies."  [138•1 

p Alexei Tolstoy told the Soviet soldier: "You love your wife and child; turn that love inside out, so it gives you pain, so it makes you bleed__Kill the beast—that is your sacred commandment."  [138•2 

p Soviet literature did not depict the enemy as weak. It did not promise an easy victory. It spoke of his strength and of his weakness. He had primed for war, had prepared for aggression, his army was trained, had much experience, was malicious, greedy and cynical. His weaknesses were the absence of lofty ideals, the lowliness of aims, their contradiction with the inexorable laws of history. The spirit and morale of the Soviet man, his devotion to socialism, surpassed by far that sinister likeness to ideal nourished by fascism.

p The main thing was to bring home to every Soviet man the intrinsic sense of the war. Soviet literature, hand in hand with all other forms of patriotism-inspiring ideological work, tackled the task, creating images of men fighting unto death, depicting the power and invincibility of the socialist system. It sang the ideals of the Soviet man, the theme of Soviet socialist patriotism.

p DeYence lines abandoned by the Red Army were gradually retaken. But if communist convictions had been similarly abandoned, they would have been irretrievable. Performing its civic and,patriotic duty, Soviet literature clung to them unto death, and therein is the greatness of its exploit.

p That exploit was part of the exploit of the nation. Soviet iterature’s bonds with the people grew stronger in those grim war years: the writers, poets and playwrights wrote and said exactly what the people wanted to hear from them. They said 139 the truth about the nation’s tragedy, about its burning anger, an anger that could not but save the Soviet Union and all mankind from fascist enslavement. They used the power of the word to prove the irreversibility of world history, as manifested in socialism’s victory and in the profound changes which that victory had wrought.

p The people in battle, the people in the rear, the people in besieged cities—those were the main heroes. The writers showed the determinative role played by the people in the fight against fascism and in forging the victory.

p The nation recognised their writers’ exploit. The demand for poetry, novels and short stories, and feature articles, soared: as many as 169,500,000 copies of books of fiction were put out during the war years.  [139•1 

p Not journals alone, but also national, local and army newspapers printed the works of the Soviet men of letters. Pravda, Izvestia and Krasnaya fyezda devoted pages to plays, poems and stories by Olga Bergholtz, Wanda Wasilewska, Boris Gorbatov, Vasily Grossman, P. Pavlenko, Mikhail Svetlov, Konstantin Simonov, Alexander Tvardovsky, Mikhail Sholokhov, and others.

p When the guns speak, the Muses are silent. This proverb did not hold true. Thundering guns could not muffle the Muses. This is particularly true of poetry, which flowered, gaining national recognition. It linked the soldier’s and workman’s inner world with his patriotic duty, making heroism in the name of the country the main criterion of moral purity and strength.

p Poetry proved an effective, mobile and inspiring form of art—the poems and songs of Jambul, M. Issakovsky, G. Leonidze, V. Lebedev-Kumach, Y. Kolas, Y. Kupala, M- Rylsky, K. Simonov, A. Surkov, A. Tvardovsky, and many others. In the autumn of 1941 Nikplai Tikhonov wrote a poem about beleaguered Leningrad, entitled Kirov Is With Us. A. Prokofiev’s ppem Russia, P. Antokolsky’s Son, P. Tychina’s Burial of a Friend, A. Kuleshev’s Brigade Standard, and Margarita Aliger’s %oya produced heroic images of men and women who did not hesitate to accept the enemy’s challenge. In Aliger’s poem, Zoya says before dying: "I shall die, but the truth will win!"

140

p In a poem, "If Your Home Is Dear to You”, popular among Soviet armymen and officers, Simonov exhorts theni to kill the fascists mercilessly.

p Like many other poets in close touch with the men in the armed forces, Simonov knew how keenly they wanted lyrical poetry. And he produced it for them, elevating the personal and intimate to the highest rung of civic heroism. His "Wait for Me" became one of the most popular battleline poems, because it was so true to life. In it the soldier addresses his girl with love and faith in her loyalty. Her patient waiting, he tells her, would save and sustain him in battle. This and many other front-line poems by Simonov, Surkov and Issakovsky, imbued with an ardent patriotism, assumed the dimensions of folklore. The songs by V. LebedevKumach, above all his "Holy War”, which epitomised the might of the Soviet people risen in battle against the black fascist horde, inspired men going over the top.

p The poets showed that hatred of the enemy was in wartime an expression of genuine humanism. Take Simonov’s splendid lines:

p We have in us a severe freedom: abandoning Mother to her tears, to buy immortality for the people by our own death.  [140•1 

p In the autumn of 1942 Alexander Tvardovsky began publishing chapter upon chapter of his brilliant poem, Vasily Tyorkin. The author describes how he wrote it in the grim surroundings of the war:

p Stealthily, In trenches, under flimsy roofs, On the road, just anyhow, Not getting off the wheels, In rain beneath the trenchcoat, Or,-pulling off a glove, In wind, in freezing cold, I put down Lines that lived each by itself.  [140•2 

141

p Vasily Tyorkin is the composite image of the Soviet front-line soldier who treats his wartime trade as ordinary martial business. His daily labours are illumined by a lofty Eatriotic idea, that of defending the great gains of socialism x>m a ruthless enemy. Tyorkin’s image has absorbed all the energy and dynamism of the nation’s fight against fascism. He is the bearer of the finest Russian features, the embodiment of an ordinary man’s quickness and strength. He has a clear mind, he is hearty, vivacious, the owner of a sound sense of humour, filled with warmth and a subtle sadness. Tyorkin is a patriot in the loftiest sense of the word. There is not a shadow of doubt in his mind that victory awaits him at the end of the road.

p Referring to a difficult river crossing, effected by every available, mostly makeshift, means, Tvardovsky writes:

p Crossings, crossings! Guns roaring in the blackest dark, A battle raging, right and holy, A mortal battle not for glory, But that life prevail on earth.  [141•1 

p Tyorkin, like other composite heroes, stood beside the real heroes glorified by the Soviet writers. Literature’s outstanding merit was that it described the soldiers’ exploits, popularised them, made them known to the entire nation. And thus, many of the exploits were repeated by others, emulated even, a thousandfold. The partisan girl Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, pilot Alexei Maresyev, battalion commander Bourdjan Momysh-Uly and infantryman Alexander Matrosov are for all time inscribed in the epic history of the war.

p Besides describing the exploits of heroes, Soviet literature described the exploits of hero-cities. Olga Bergholtz, Vera Inber, Vsevolod Vishnevsky, Vera Ketlinskaya, Nikolai Tikhonov and others dedicated their inspiration to the tragic story of beleaguered Leningrad.

p Bergholtz wrote that she found her poetic happiness, the happiness of a citizen, in her involvement in the heroic story of Leningrad, in the battle for which she conceived herself as a soldier of the ranks:

142

p I am happy, And feel more clearly That I have always lived for this, For this embittering bloom. I make no secret of the pride I feel Of entering as a private your story, Leningrad mine, In the rank of poet.  [142•1 

p To the garrison of Hanko Peninsula (Soviet military base in the south-west of Finland) M. Dudin dedicated his poetry, while V. Grossman, M. Lukonin, V. Nekrasov, K. Simonov, and many others, wrote about the epic of Stalingrad.

p Soviet wartime prose developed somewhat later than poetry, somewhere in the summer of 1942 —such outstanding works as Sholokhov’s Science of Hatred, Simonov’s play Russian People, Grossman’s novel Nation Immortal, Wanda Wasilewska’s Rainbow, Leonid Leonov’s Invasion, A. Korneichuk’s Front, V. Kozhevnikov’s short story March, April, etc. Many had elements of a popular epic. Great vitality abounded even in passages describing the death of men, whose courage defied the grave.

p Grossman’s Nation Immortal contains the following lines:

p "The men died. Who will tell of their brave deeds? Only the swift clouds saw how Private Ryabokon fought to the last cartridge; how Political Officer Yeretik, after filling a dozen of the enemy, blew himself up with a fast cooling hand; how Red Army man Glushko, surrounded by the Germans, fired to his last breath; how machine-gunners Glagolyev and Kordakhin, faint with loss of blood, fought as long as their weakening fingers could press the trigger, as long as their dimming eyes could see the target through the sultry haze of ,the battle.

p "Great indeed is the people whose sons die so nobly, simply and grimly on the vast fields of battle. The sky and the stars know of them; the earth heard their last sighs; the unreaped rye and the wayside groves have seen their feats of valour."  [142•2 

p M. Sholokhov’s novel, They Fought for Their Country, portrayed Communists imbued with a courage that vanquished death. These soldiers were deeply conscious that 143 their personal fate was part of the fate of the socialist country, and in this spirit, by their own example, they inspired the men and officers around them. Even badly wounded, they stayed in the line. Communist Streltsov, a private, says to his friend Lopakhin: "Even deaf one can fight on alongside one’s comrades."  [143•1 

p In the story, "Science of Hatred”, Sholokhov describes Communist dedication as the strongest moral and ideological support a man can have in face of mortal danger to himself and his country.

p Many other works portray war heroes: Alexei Tolstoy’s The Russian Character, Leonid Sobolev’s A Seaman’s Soul, Sergeyev-Tsensky’s In the Snows, and Konstantin Simonov’s The Days and the Nights.

p Alexander Bek’s novel, Volokolamsk Highway, depicts the arduous moulding of soldiers out of men who had never handled weapons in peacetime. These men, driven by the compulsion of defending their country, hating the enemy, men who had learnt the enemy’s strength and weaknesses, rapidly developed into a powerful force that crushed Hitler’s war machine. Bek’s book portrays the friendship of the peoples of the USSR, stressing their unity. It depicts the challenges faced by officers and political officers, showing their role in training and educating the ranks.

p Many of the Soviet novels show the suffering of people fallen into nazi slavery. That is the topic to which Wanda Wasilewska dedicated her novel Rainbow. She shows the loyalty of people in nazi-occupied areas to Soviet power, the unbending force that fired them. Also she brings home the immeasurable superiority of Soviet morale and spirit.

p Alexander Fadeyev’s novel, The Young Guard, completed at war’s-end, was based on a true story—the exploits and tragic end of an underground Komsomol organisation in nazi-occupied Krasnodon, a miner’s town. Forcefully, the novel reveals the sources of the heroism which moved people of different generations. Like many other novels written in wartime, The Young Guard shows how much the Communist Party had done to cultivate patriotism and heroism among the people.

p Led by the Party, the writers dedicated their finest lines to it.

144

p A new topic appeared in Soviet literature at the end of the war: the soldier whom the fortune of war had taken far from his homeland, dreams of the homecoming. This is the theme of M. I. Blanter’s song, with lyrics by M. V. Issakovsky, "Under the Balkan Stars":

p Under the Balkan stars I recall with reason deep All the splendid spots of Bryansk, Yaroslavl, and places in Smolensk.

p Composers produced patriotic music of different kinds. Songs sung by millions of soldiers, cherished by them as expressive of their own feelings, were highly popular. Dmitry Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony, composed in embattled Leningrad, was an outstanding work. It was dedicated to the Hero-city and the impending victory. The music depicted the invasion, the brutality of the fascists, the struggle unto death, and the final victory over fascism, the great triumph of freedom-loving mankind. By writing the symphony in a besieged city the composer himself performed a heroic feat. Small wonder that this opus became known in all countries and was soon performed by the world’s finest symphony orchestras.

p Soviet artists joined in the fight against fascism. Many of them concentrated on posters and cartoons. Among these were V. Goryayev, P. Denisovsky, S. Kostin, Kukryniksy (composite name for M. V. Kupriyanov, P. N. Krylov, and N. A. Sokolov), N. Radlov, G. Savitsky, P. Sokolov-Skalya, M. Cheremnykh, D. Shmarinov, P. Shukhmin. The first war poster, "Smash and Destroy the Enemy Without Mercy!" by Kukryniksy, came off the presses on June 23, 1941, two days after the nazi assault. The poster depicted a Red Army man piercing Hitler with his bayonet. Hitler’s portrait is vile and rat-like, and beside him lies the torn-up non-aggression treaty with the discarded mask of peace. N. Zhukov’s poster, "Bash the Life Out of Them!”, the poster "He Who Draweth the Sword Shall Perish by the Sword!" by V. Ivanov and O. Burovaya, and V. Koretsky’s "Red Armyman, Help!" were known throughout the country.

p In their wartime paintings, artists portrayed the brutal essence of fascism and its doom, contrasting the aggressor’s cruelty with the lofty moral strength of Soviet people, their 145 humanism, in the name of which they had risen to a man to resist the enemy.

p In A. A. Plastov’s painting, "The Fascist’s Been Here”, is shown the tail of a German plane, whose flyer had just committed senseless murder: a little boy, a collective-farm shepherd, is shown sprawled on pale red autumn grass, his dog howling at the departing plane. The picture, profoundly humanistic, is full of scorn for the murderer. A hand to hand fight between seamen and infantrymen and the beast-like nazis is the theme of A. A. Deineka’s "Defence of Sevastopol”. Another painting by the same artist, "Moscow Outskirts, November 1941”, depicts the firm determination of trie people to defend their capital. Anti-tank “hedgehogs” are dug into the ground, the houses, ready for battle, look out with empty windows upon empty streets, along which a military truck passes, probably after delivering a supply of arms. Ye. Ye. Lansere produced a series of five paintings, "The Trophies of Russian Arms”, in which, delving into history, he asserts the patriotic inevitability of Soviet victory.

p S. V. Gerasimov’s "A Partisan’s Mother" rouses deep emotion. Fascist executioners are doing their dirty work in a village square, the corpses of people they have put to death lie on the ground, the flames of fire light the skies, while fresh victims are being brought to be executed. A plain Soviet woman stands before the fascist officer wearing an. Iron Cross and holding a whip. Her visage and figure speak of fortitude, of moral superiority, of deep courage.

p Kukryniksy produced a number of paintings, too. One of them, “Tanya”, is dedicated to the exploit of a courageous partisan girl. In a painting called "Fascists Flee from Novgorod" fascist firebrands scurry back and forth against the setting of an old Russian cathedral church, and retribution is sure to overcome them. That, indeed, is the meaning of the raised arm of one of the figures of the monument, "Thousand Years of Russia”, which the nazis had dragged off its bfje. T. G. Gaponenko’s "After the Expulsion of the fascist Invaders”, is similar in theme and expressiveness of grief over the tragically killed. G. G. Nissky’s "Hurrying to the Defence of the Moscow-Leningrad Highway”, is documentary.

p Soviet portrait painters produced a gallery of never-to- be-forgotten heroes—General I. V. Panfilov (by V. N. Yakovlev), partisan commander S. A. Kovpak (by A. A. Shovkunenko), 146 Colonel B. A. Yusupov (sculpture by V. I. Mukhina), Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya (sculpture by M. G. Manizer), Twice Hero of the Soviet Union Major M. G. Gareyev (painting by N. V. Tomsky) and General I. D. Chernyakhovsky (by the same artist), and many others. The portraits convey the lofty morality and fortitude of Soviet people defending their country.

p The artists of encircled Leningrad did not lay down their arms either. In January 1942 they organised the exhibition, "Leningrad of the Time of the Patriotic War”. In the hall where the paintings were shown the temperature was never above 10° C; its organisers and participants could barely move around, due to undernourishment. Yet they remained active.

p Newsreel cameramen were with the army from the beginning—making their arduous way from the western frontiers of the USSR, .to the banks of the Volga and then back from the Volga to Berlin and the Elbe. Many of them lost their lives. Their total performance amounted to over 3,500,000 metres of film, recording events that have gone down in history. The film is of incalculable value and is often used these days by scenario writers and film directors. All in all, 500 newsreels, 67 war documentaries and 34 feature films were put out and screened.  [146•1 

p The war was not yet over when full-length documentaries were pieced together from the materials of front-line cameramen. The film, Defeat of German Troops at Moscow (directors L. Varlamov and I. Kopalin) was screened soon after the historic battle, on February 18, 1942. Another documentary, Fighting Leningrad (directors R. Karmen, N. Komarevtsev, V. Solovtsov and Y. Uchitel) appeared soon after. On June 13, 1942, 240 cameramen in 40 rear locations and along the entire front from the White to the Black seas shot the film, A War’s Day. The full-length documentary, Stalingrad, appeared in March 1943. It was shot by front-line cameramen during the battles in the Hero-city. Shown at home and abroad, the film staggered viewers by its stark reality. A US newspaper wrote: This film "is the absolute peak in documentary cinematography. No other picture could convey so 147 forcefully and lucidly the destructiveness of war. The film has nothing to equal it in portraying fighting Russia."  [147•1 

p A series of films followed, showing the successive Soviet offensives, crowned by two films, the titles of which speak for themselves: Berlin (directors Y. Raizman and Y. Svilova) and The Defeat of Japan (directors A. Zarkhi and I. Kheifets). I. G. Bolshakov, head of the wartime Committee for Cinematography, commented: "Many of these films were novel in approach, and strikingly expressive. They were evidence of the high professional skill of the cameramen and had good texts and excellent musical settings. In other words all the components of a documentary—the editing, photography, text and music —were novel and of a high standard. The documentary legitimately ranked as high as a feature film for its politico-ideological and educational impact. The Soviet documentary cameramen did much to elevate the documentary cinema to the level of feature cinematog- raphy."  [147•2 

p Many documentary reels were brought back by intrepid cameramen from partisan encampments and the Resistance groups abroad. Among them was a film by Sergei Yutkevich, Liberated France.

p It was hard to produce full length features about the war soon after it broke out. Instead, the film people resorted to short cine-novels. These, which also included comedies, were then shown together in "war programmes”. In 1941 and 1942 as many as 12 such programmes were screened, their success stemming from the fact that they were based on true war episodes.

p War programme No. 6 (director V. Pudovkin) contains a novel entitled The Feast in ^hirmunka, which tells the story of an old farm’ woman, Praskovya. A group of hungry nazis broke into her little house. They wanted her to feed them. Praskovya decides to do her bit in the war, to poison the two-legged animals, but the nazis are cautious. They want Praskovya to eat the food first. And she does not hesitate. Then the nazis eat, while Praskovya goes to the pantry, where, overcome by the poison, she dies. So do the fascists. When partisans come to the village they see the finale. "Quiet, there, hold your mouths,” says Onisim, Praskovya’s husband, 148 to the partisans, when he finds the body of his wife. "There’s a lioness here. Dead, but she defended her den to the last."  [148•1 

p Among the first wartime feature films, Secretary of the District Party Committee by I. Pyriev won immediate acclaim. It showed the underground in nazi-occupied territory, depicting the work of the District Party Committee Secretary and the Party branch. The same subject, that of Soviet heroism, of the gallant struggle fought in occupied territory by Soviet people, is treated in another picture — F. Ermler’s She Defends Her Country. V. Vanin, who played the Secretary in Pyriev’s picture, created the image of a Party functionary embodying the will and wisdom of the Party, whereas in She Defends Her Country Vera Maretskaya created the unforgettable image of a woman partisan. M. Donskoi’s Rainbow also portrayed the life and struggle of Soviet people in the enemy rear, while L. Lukov’s Two Soldiers was dedicated to the friendship of the fighting men.

p Heroism is distinctly the dominant theme of the wartime Soviet films; The topic is treated from different angles in L. Armshtam’s Zpya, V. Eisimont’s There Was a Girl, M. Romm’s Human Being 217, A. Romm’s Invasion, L. Lukov’s It Happened in Donbas, A. Stolper’s and B. Ivanov’s Wait for Me, Yu. Raizman’s The Sky Over Moscow, I. Savchenko’s Ivan Nikulin, Russian Sailor, I. Pyriev’s At 6p.m. After the War, and others.

p There were also pictures about heroism in the rear. That particular chapter was treated in much the same vein as in wartime literature and art.

p Truthfulness is the (most forceful element of Soviet wartime art. This was noted by Georges Charensol, the French cinema critic, who wrote in 1945: "The Russians have done what neither the Americans nor the French had yet accomplished: they jettisoned the fake war films that inundated the cinema world. Films made in the USSR in these three past years are incontestably a distinct break from the sentimental and moralising, intellectual or vaudevillesque stereotypes that pervade the cinema___ America and Europe are making war films. Russia is farthest from the thought. What the Soviet cinema shows is the daily life of people whose thoughts and deeds are centred on one thing: to chase out the Germans 149 and to avenge the suffering they have caused. These images ... express the intrinsic reality."  [149•1 

p Beyond question, the Soviet cinema, like the other arts, contributed to the victory. Like the rest of the nation, the writers, composers and artists were part of the war effort throughout the war. As the Danish writer Martin Andersen Nexo put it, they were "forces of action, militant forces___ Soviet literature and art did much to bring closer the victory of democracy throughout the world".  [149•2 

p The arts helped the Soviet people to defeat Hitler Germany and her allies in battle and economically. Their works cultivated lofty principles, a dauntless heroism, moral purity and endless loyalty to the Soviet Union.

p The war effort in the Soviet rear was evidence of the unity of front and rear, of the concern shown by the Soviet people for their Red Army and of the rear’s importance to victory. This joint action in the battle-lines and in the rear exemplified the decisive and creative role of the masses in making history.

p The unity was expressed in the great moral fortitude of all Soviet people, in their readiness to sacrifice, their love of country, their solidarity and team spirit. The selfless labour of workers, farmers and intellectuals testified to the nation’s unity, the unity of front and rear, without which victory would have been inconceivable.

p The Soviet people showed their concern for the Armed Forces in many different ways. In the early months of the war, when the consumer industries had not yet gone over to wartime production, people collected warm clothes for gift parcels to soldiers in the battle-lines, millions of parcels containing valenki (felt boots) and sheepskins.

p At the height of the battle for Stalingrad, in the autumn of 1942 members of the Krasny Dobrovolets Collective Farm, Tambov Region, called on all Soviet people to join them in collecting funds to build a tank column for the Red Army. The people in the region, who hailed this initiative, collected 43 million rubles in a fortnight.  [149•3  In mid-December the tanks, each inscribed, "Tambovsky kolkhoznik”, went into action.

p Funds were collected throughout the country. Ferapont 150 Golovaty, a Saratov farmer, was the first to initiate individual contributions to the Red Army Fund, donating 100,000 rubles out of his savings to build warplanes. Sakhanov, a farmer of Buryat-Mongolia, contributed 190,000 rubles, while Kubegenov, chairman of a collective farm in Omsk Region, contributed 206,000 rubles and 0.8 ton of flour. In February 1943 the men of an air regiment received a plane, bearing the legend: "From Lenochka for Father”, built at the request of Lena Azarenkova, a Moscow schoolgirl who made the first contribution to the plane fund.

p The patriotic initiative of the Tambov collective farmers thus grew into a powerful movement in which all towns and districts of the country, all sections of Soviet society, took part. Tanks and planes with varying inscriptions, such as "Moskovsky kolkhoznik" (Moscow Collective Farmer), "Ryazansky kolkhoznik" (Ryazan Collective Farmer), "From the Uzbek people”, etc., arrived in the battle-lines and were fondly accepted by the army.

p A new type of movement sprang up in February 1943. Volunteer units were fully equipped and armed on funds collected by people of a region. The first to come to the front was the Urals Volunteer Tank Corps, consisting of the best Ural workers, with equipment and arms—from shirt button to heavy tank—made in Urals factories after working hours and acquired on money collected from citizens. The corps was followed by the Special Siberian Rifle Corps, and after Krasnodar Territory was cleared of the enemy, its people helped activate the Krasnodar Infantry Division.

p All in all, the people contributed as much as 94,500 million rubles for the front during the war years. Not only did this mean train replacements, first-class arms, ammunition and food supplies; it also lifted the morale of the troops. Countless letters sent to the front contained workers’ accounts about their life and labour effort, inspiring the soldiers in their exploit. Soldiers, too, wrote back home, describing the battles. The front and rear were thus parts of a single whole.

In November 1967 Leonid Brezhnev, General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, said: "The front and rear formed a single mighty fist. The country became a single military camp. It was difficult for everybody. People were undernourished and did not get enough sleep. Women took the place of their husbands in the workshops and children took over machine-tools from their fathers. But the industrial 151 heart of the Motherland never missed a beat. Our factories gave the Soviet Army the weapons to crush the military machine of Hitlerism which had behind it the industrial might of almost the whole of Europe. Despite the acute shortage of manpower and farm machines and despite the drastic reduction of the crop area our collective and state farms gave the country the food it needed for victory. It was a civic and patriotic feat of the people. It was a feat performed by people who saw the meaning of their life in labour for the sake of victory. And they did everything to ensure victory."  [151•1