Irene Sánchez CózarGlobal Strategy Report, 11/2022
Abstract: During World War II, the Soviet Union was the first belligerent country in which women fought on the front. They volunteered moved by their patriotic sentiments, rooted in the recent political changes of their country. The Soviet Constitution of 1936 granted women equal civil rights to men. The Soviet female soldier has been portrayed worldwide as a symbol of women’s emancipation in virtue of socialist ideas. In practice, Soviet traditional values did not experiment such evolution. The discourse about women’s contribution to war rapidly changed in the face of the victory. Soviet female soldiers were asked again to take care of their homes and repopulate their devastated country. In addition, they were absent in the victory celebrations and tributes. Having fought on the front turned for them into a traumatic experience and reason to be ashamed of.
Para citar como referencia: Sánchez Cózar, Irene (2022), «The Invisible Combatants of World War II: Soviet Female Soldiers in the Socialist State», Global Strategy Report, No 11/2022.
Introduction
According to the eminent military historian John Keegan, warfare is the one human activity from which women, with the most insignificant exceptions, have always and everywhere stood apart.[1] Historians have throughout the history neglected the involvement of women in the study of history. The monopoly of violence has always belonged to the male gender because of the sustained stereotype that women are unable to exert violence. This is just one example that proves the hegemonic status of men in all societies along history.
The Second World War broke the mould when it comes to social traditional values. The scale of the conflict and its meddling in every sphere of life heralded the advent of a level of implication in war for the belligerent countries unprecedent in history. For the Soviet Union, the effort experimented by its society can adequately be graded as total war since all state resources were destined to the war effort, while they broke the custom laws of war in many ways.[2] First and foremost, WWII involved for the Soviet Union the mobilization en masse of thousands of women who fought on the front and performed in vital roles during the conflict. It was the first belligerent country in the world whose women were directly involved in combat and the only nation that allowed female pilots fly in combat missions, as well as the first nation whose female population served outside their borders.
Nevertheless, this has a precedent set in the Soviet history. During the October Revolution women became visible in society. The Soviet Constitution of 1936 gave women equal civil rights. The position change of women in society during the interwar period thanks to the Bolshevik policies created an image of formal equality. In this regard, the Soviet state delivered an ambiguous message by affirming that women were capable of doing anything men could, yet they were discouraged to do so. Therefore, the research question of this paper states as follows: did women’s active involvement in WWII respond to a real endeavour towards women’s emancipation in the Soviet Union or did it rather serve the convenient purpose of winning the war at any cost? The understanding of the conflict as a fight for survival removed all existing moral constraints and choices, whether individual or collective, as these were made for the sake of the Motherland.
The international myth of the Russian heroine, depicted in the first place as Maria Bochkareva, a humble peasant from Siberia who fought in the First World War, lingered and came to life with the massive female volunteerism during WWII. Many Soviet female combatants became the symbol of socialist emancipation far beyond the borders of the Soviet Union. The point now is to assess whether the opening of the armed forces to women represented an irreversible milestone or, on the contrary, simply supposed a genuinely suitable decision, product of a state crisis period. For that purpose, we are going to analyse the development of the Soviet military framework before and after WWII to assess if there has been a revolution or, instead, an involution.
On the other hand, this research work devotes particular attention to the experiences lived by Soviet female soldiers, as they represent the silenced narrative of WWII. According to the historian D’Ann Campbell, women were the invisible combatants of the Second World War.[3] As a consequence, many female writers have made the effort to compile veteran women’s memoirs, whose voices have been deliberately alienated from the public knowledge. In this sense, Reina Pennington’s book named “Wings, Women and War” stands as the first scholar research about female aviation regiments during WWII in the Soviet Union. In it, the author reflects upon the real motivation for the creation of these regiments, if it was men shortage or they served propaganda purposes. Another reference book in this matter is “Soviet Women in Combat”, whose author, Anna Krylova, takes the stand that Soviet women’s involvement on the front during WWII did not involve a change in gender identities. She states that, in spite of fighting together, they were still considered different.[4] Nonetheless, it is Svetlana Alexievich’s book, “The Unwomanly Face of War”, that has arisen as the most concise, deep and revealing compilation of female veterans’ memoirs. Along its pages, the personal experiences of these female Soviet combatants are turned into words and shake anyone who reads them. Alexievich sustains that the female narrative of the war varies a lot from the male’s perspective and has been historically silenced, especially due to the myth in which the Great Patriotic War has turned into within the Soviet Union. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to deconstruct the official widespread narrative about the Soviet female combatants by listening to their side of the story, and history in a wider sense, from their own lips.
Military Service and Womanhood in Russia until WWII
During the tsarist period, a conscription law was promulgated in 1874, which stated the principle of equality by asserting a universal military obligation for men. However, it listed some exceptions for certain occupations, social circumstances, and ethnic minorities. The result was a poorly cohesive army.[5] In the context of the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905), the Russian Empire was flooded with internal popular demonstrations and riots against the tsar’s administration. The 1905 Russian Revolution, intertwined with the shameful outcome of the war, asserted the need of the tsarist regime to undertake deep reviews of their structures. The military defeat inevitably reinforced the idea that, if the Russian Empire were not to fall behind its rival powers, it would need to abandon the principles of the ancien regime.[6] Particularly, a great discussion related to the role of the military in the Russian tsarist society was opened up, provided that soldiers were not honoured citizens at that time.
World War I put under exam the economic and military potential of the empire, its political integrity, and the achievements of the recent Russian nation-building movement. For the Romanov Empire, WWI was the first war with mass conscription and mobilization of its reservists. The Russian Empire entered WWI with the largest army in the world: when fully mobilised, the army grew from 1,4 to nearly 5 million soldiers.[7]
During the Russian Civil War (1918-1920), the Bolshevik Reds were fighting the Whites, while peasants fought their own wars. It is argued that the explosive growth of nationalism in the western borderlands was to a great extent the consequence of the burdens of total war and the new competitive imperial policies. The Bolsheviks supressed the social stratification associated to nationalism and institutionalized a new model of political organization based on ethnic particularism.[8]
The Bolsheviks proclaimed themselves as a soldier’s party, supporting their social position immediately after the 2017 October Revolution. The conscription law of 1925 confirmed the Bolshevik commitment to a national army with socially recognised soldiers.[9] Eventually, the Soviet Constitution of 1936 defined the military service as a sacred duty of al Soviet citizenship. No socialist thinker before the Great War envisioned the possibility for the Red Army to reach such social status that enjoyed in the 1920s and beyond. All in all, a thorough militarization of society was established under the Soviet regime.
Most recurrent mobilizational subjects were focused on the ideal of masculine duty and, specifically, on the idea that men had to defend their land and their women in concert with their brothers, the feeling of comradeship. This bond defined the national project in both the World War I and the Civil War. At the same time, the war and upheavals balanced out the society by pushing women into the public sphere. However, the inclusion of women in the civic activity in Russia was not only linked to the Civil War and the Revolution. On the contrary, there was a liberal feminist movement during the last decades of the 19th century whose basis was the patriotic volunteering of women.[10]
On the other hand, the notion of masculinity underwent a dramatic change. What it meant to be a man was radically transformed. Before, true men were to defend their land and family to the last breath. Joshua Sanborn argues that during the Soviet regime, the gender structure changed from patriarchal to aggressively fraternal.[11] New notions of manliness and sexuality, a combination of virility and self-control, were used by nationalists to give stability to their army. The nationalization of masculinity made many Russians youngsters go to war to prove their manhood more than to defend the Motherland.
The idea that sex could undermine army discipline had a lot to do with women rejection at the front. On top of that, there was the sustained belief that women could not share military male virtues. When it comes to women and the military, no woman was ever conscripted into either the pre-revolutionary or the Red Army in a combat position. However, they were drafted into the army in non-combatant roles. A small number of them volunteered for combat positions and a more substantial amount for non-combatant positions. These ones required a paternal permission, some of them still being minors. Female doctors and members of the Communist Party were the only groups eligible for forced conscription, the first time under the 1917 decree. However, communist women just were sent to combat only when they desired to do so.
Women’s participation in the military effort was crucial for the understanding of Russian patriotism. The military nurses, the Sisters of Mercy, were to be clean, bloodless and pure. Their uniform evoked to the Virgin Mary. They were not allowed to show their uniforms in public during their private activities for fear of injuring their honoured occupation, especially when walking on the street with soldiers. The government feared sexual and political contamination. In order to keep these moral standards, the Sisters of Mercy belonged to the higher social class. They were expected to show heroic behaviours, albeit being these expectations different than those from men. Women’s courage was expected to be passive, related to cares.[12]
The requirement for both sexes to receive decorations was to fulfil the requirement of selflessness. Women faced paradoxical expectations from them: they were supposed to die for the Motherland but were seldom sent to combat. There were women in combat in WWI since lots of women rejected to join the gendered divisions like the Sisters of Mercy and asked to serve as soldiers. Their requests highlight the close bond between soldiering and masculinity. It was agreed among military leaders that the front line was not the place for women, alleging their weakness.
A famous figure was Maria Bochkareva, a Siberian peasant who served in the 25th Reserve Battalion of the Russian Army. Her request to go to the front was attributed to a misguided patriotism. She wished that women took part in the historical development of Russia. The officials feared disruptive sexual activity as with the Sisters of Mercy. She not only had to transform her into a soldier but a man. She created a women’s battalion nicknamed the “Battalions of Death”. Its members had to have their heads shaved and wear male uniforms. Bochkareva trained her women soldiers aiming to remove their feminine appearance and behaviour, which was understood as a sign of vulnerability. It was forbidden for them to laugh and were encouraged to smoke and sweat in order to get out the men inside them.[13] Bochkareva initially recruited 2,000 women, but due to the severe discipline implemented and the harsh punishment for minor infractions, the number shrank to 300 recruits. Women were not allowed to be soldiers unless become masculine. On the other hand, due to the abovementioned reticence of men to allow women’s meddling in the front, some fought in WWI hiding their sex. Some young women in the Red Army already fought in the Civil War disguised as men, arguing their obligation to go to the front as everyone in their village did so.[14]
The official position of political leaders towards women seemed to have changed after the Bolsheviks seized power. It is alleged that they spread an emancipatory message for women that opened the military service to them. The regulation of 1925 envisaged the female citizens in military service, although limited to roles of care. Their propaganda portrayed women going to war alongside with men, however, there actually remained a great resistance to accept women at the front. Thousands of women had been present in the Civil War as part of the Red Army, mostly in auxiliary capacities, as Sisters of Mercy or serving in the Detachments of Special Designation.[15]
The Soviet Union was pioneer in gender equality and became the very first nation in the world to give full legal equality and citizenship to women. The Soviet Constitution of 1936 expressed in its article 122 that “women in the USSR are accorded equal rights with men in all spheres of the economic, state, cultural, social and political life”.[16] This meant that they shared their labour and military duties with men. Of course, this great legal progress in the political status of women did not entail a rapid shift in the general mindset, rooted in very traditional ideas.
This contradictory depiction of women was based on the idea of equal civil rights, whereas the exertion of violence limited to men remained untouched in the general mindset, as in previous fully male-centered military systems. On top of that, many feminist symbols like Alexandra Kollontai, who was appointed Minister by the Bolshevik government, did not accept equality in the army, arguing that tasks should be divided for genders, thus reinforcing the passive and custodial innate capacity of her own gender. Women were supposed to fulfil their national responsibilities through other means. In a nutshell, even the most influential gender activists were not supporting the complete destruction of the gendered military structure. When paying attention to biology, the argument sustained was that women were aimed to produce soldiers, not to become such. Besides, Russian soldiers believed that women were capable of treason and espionage.
To sum up, the role of women in the Bolshevik society was conflicting. They fought for constructing a nation side by side, however men could not stand that they performed the same roles. Women, like Maria Bochkareva, displaying an active virtue in battle were to a great extent disturbing. Although Bochkareva’s women were feasted in the aftermath of their participation in war, soon were forgotten due to the Bolshevik interest therein. Even Bochkareva was arrested and interrogated for her alleged political motivations. The female veterans who survived lived the rest of their lives in extreme poverty and neglected conditions. These women showed their capacity for self-sacrifice during the seven years of total war juncture. The situation was confusing for them, who whether pretended to be men or conformed themselves with the assignment of breeding soldiers. They were offered a different model of citizenship, even though difference is not always translated into equality.
Thereupon, we are going to analyse the role of women in the mass mobilization that took place in the Soviet Union in the face of World War II so as to turn down the stereotyped perception of Soviet women’s involvement in the conflict as harmonious. On top of that, their participation in WWII was later followed by a lack of recognition and even more social injustices and calamities.
Female Soviet Soldiers in WWII
The Soviet Union was the only nation in the world during WWII whose women actively engaged in combat. For none of the other nations involved was the conflict comparable in destruction and intensity as for the Soviet Union. They exhibited a superlative degree of mobilization of national material and human resources. The female contribution to the victory was outrageous. Initially, mass voluntarism brought unemployed housewives into the labour force. By 1942, 60% of defence industry workers were women.[17] The German invasion disrupted the lives of many Soviet youngsters which were still in school. Those who volunteered tended to be more educated. Most of the veteran’s memoirs that Alexievich collected in her book belonged to women who attended at that time school and university. One of the veteran interviewees stated: “That’s how we were brought up, that nothing in our country should happen without us”.[18] Figures are striking: a quarter of the volunteers for the Red Army in the Donetsk region were women, a third in the Denepropetrovsk region, and half in the Kirovograd region. Others joined the people’s militia or partisan groups operating in the territory occupied by the enemy.[19] Although they mostly performed in non-combatant roles, their lives were at risk.
Soviet women were an important part of the Soviet military in WWII, by the end of 1943, more than 80,000 women were in the military service, about 8% of total personnel.[20] Soviets were also the only female soldiers fighting outside the borders of their own country during WWII. In addition to that, the Soviet Union was the only country to allow women pilots to fly in combat missions. Besides, 41% of all doctors and 43% of all surgeons were women.[21] Thousands of them were directly engaged in battle, although this being the exception. In 1942, given the increasing death toll, the Party Central Committee made the decision to allow women volunteers in combat regiments. By 1945, there were around 246,000 female soldiers at the front. They performed mainly as snipers, machine-gunners, partisans and paratroopers.[22]
In October 1942, Stalin’s decree declared the formation of women’s air brigades “to satisfy women’s desires to take up arms to defend their socialist motherhood”.[23] Although voluntarily, the mass wave of recruits was orchestrated by the Komsomol, the Communist Party’s youth division. This new trend was stopped after a resolution in 1943 that prohibited the recruitment of women who were the main caregivers for their families. In other words, pregnant women and women in charge of children or elderly were prohibited from serving. Patriotism or, as they expressed it, their love for Stalin, motivated many of them to volunteer. However, female veterans highlight personal motivations for volunteering too, such as to avenge their dead relatives or to try to join them at the front. There is no one single narrative, but common points allow us to draw upon some conclusions of their experiences at the front.
Conscription and Volunteering. The Example of the Soviet Female Combat Pilots
The universal military service law of 1939 was similar to the previous decrees, only men were subject to conscription. Nevertheless, women with certain education could be mobilized. Women were allowed to volunteer, albeit strongly discouraged to do so. High ranks of the army showed ambivalent attitudes to women’s participation in the coming war. For the aviation, since the Soviet Union proclaimed legal equality for women, they could not legally refuse their entrance in military flying schools. Despite the official legal entitlement, they struggled to enter, only succeeding thanks to persistent applications. However, women with flight training were not registered in the military reserve.
The Soviet government gave great importance to aviation. The idealization of Soviet flyers from the government accounted with some women like Polina Osipenko and Marina Raskova.[24] Osipenko died in 1939 in a crash and Raskova in 1943. Until then, the latter was a member of the Supreme Soviet and had access to high stances of the government.
At that time, long-distance flights had the purpose not only of displaying the Soviet industrial and military capacity but of portraying female pilots as greater products of the socialist doctrine. One female pilot wrote in the late 1930s in Moscow: “In those years, the names of some pilots like Raskova were on everyone’s lips”.[25] Raskova then became the most famous female pilot, in part for the spectacular flight across the Motherland, the beloved Rodina.
When the Germans invaded the Soviet Union in the summer of 1941, women pilots were not enlisted, they could only serve as nurses, anti-aircraft gunners or communication operators, even though they had been members of clubs of aviation before the war exploded. Thus, there was not any plan for large-scale military mobilization of women. Only those with selected technical skills, medical and communications, were subject to conscription, while women who served in combat in the ground and air force were volunteers.
Marina Raskova proposed the creation of women’s air regiments and finally those were given the approval after a great effort from her side. She had to turn down the idea that war was not a woman’s affair. The women who joined Raskova’s unit were highly skilled, who deeply admired her. Since the German invasion of the Soviet Union started, female trainees sent letters to Raskova and to the government asking how it was possible for them to fight as they passionately wished to defend the Motherland. On the contrary, Stalin held the opinion that future generations would not forgive them sacrificing young women. However, in such a totalitarian regime, no important decision was taken without the knowledge of the leader. Therefore, some sort of acceptation by Stalin for the creation of these female aviation regiments must have occurred.[26] Unfortunately, there is no still free access to sources about Soviet governmental structures and decision-making procedures. Raskova turned into a role model for many young women who wanted to defend their homeland. She gave a speech at a women’s antifascist meeting in 1941 in Moscow, in which she stated: “Dear sisters! The hour has come for harsh retribution! Stand in the ranks of the warriors of freedom!”.[27] She was a charismatic leader for their recruited women.
Consequently, the 586th, 587th and 588th Combat Aviation Regiments were the first women units in the world. A commander expressed that it was easier to run a female regiment since they held a strong spirit of collectiveness and unity. On the other hand, the Soviet military officer who commanded the Women’s 586th Fighter Aviation Regiment stated that it would have been appropriate to adapt the situation to women in terms of hygienic conditions, clothes and organizationally speaking, to make the performing of Soviet women easier during WWII. For example, Soviet female soldiers did not receive uniforms specifically designed for women until 1943. Altogether, the 586th Regiment made more than 9,000 flights and at least 10 of the pilots died, which corresponds to approximately 30%.[28] It is sustained that women represented 12.5% of the Soviet aviation personnel, including ground personnel, by the end of the world conflict.[29] When female pilots flew in mostly male regiments, they held the role of protectors while men led the raid since the latter generally held more combat experience.
Just to provide an example, Lilya Litviak died in combat in 1943. She completed 268 combat flights and was the first woman in history to shoot down one of enemy aircraft. She is holder of the top rank number of killings among female combat pilots. Despite all this, she was only awarded with the posthumous title of Hero of the Soviet Union in 1990, half a decade later of her death, by the Soviet Chairman Gorbachev. The argument was that her body could not be identified given the brutal circumstances of the crash, essential requirement to be awarded with the title.[30] This exemplifies the lack of recognition that female combatants suffered from their government.
Some scholars have argued that the reasons to create these regiments were a mix between propaganda intentions and men shortage. What is perhaps more striking is not that female pilots were accepted in the Soviet Union, but the fact that they were granted airplanes in a clear shortage of them, especially bombers. The truth is that the recruitment of women was scarce and could not have served the purpose of replacing men. Therefore, the factor of pilot shortage does not sustain the central decision to allow female pilots into combat.[31] The most plausible cause could be that these female regiments served propaganda intentions, in which we will go more into depth hereunder.
Female Air Fighters for Propaganda Purposes
Propaganda is a powerful governmental tool to modify the general mindset towards a specific topic. The Soviets had already interiorized the idea of female workers due to the fast industrialization and collectivization registered in the 1930s. The rejection of women was almost exclusively in the battlefield.
Some historians have argued that these women air regiments were created for public relations purposes or for necessity in a shortage of male pilots. At least in this sector of the army, there had never been a shortage of personnel, but of aircraft. When giving the argument of propaganda as the main driving force for the creation of these units, the evidence shows that little recognition has been given to women in combat in the Soviet Union. The main appeal to them was focused on encouraging them as labour force, with mottos like: “Women, go and work on the collective farms, replace the men now in the Army!”.[32] Not only the government failed to praise the female soldiers in the press, these women were also neglected even in Stalin’s speeches. On the other hand, Stalin highlighted the role of women as men supporters who fought for the Motherland. Much of the media coverage of the female pilots was released in women’s publications like Krestianka (Woman Peasant) and Rabotnitsa (Woman Worker).[33]
Nevertheless, it was the “Night Witches” of the 46th Battalion who, as an exception, gained mainstream attention on the Soviet media. The Germans attributed them this name, since they bombed the German troops during dark hours. This regiment was completely compounded by volunteers, from which a total of 31 women lost their lives during the war.[34] Their members received a great amount of decorations, mainly because of the quality and quantity of successful attack air raids. The 46th Battalion was the only regime that had been absolutely compounded by women as in the other female battalions some men served too. Their Chief of Staff, Irina Rakobolskaia, stated that “nobody made any allowances for our youth or sex. They demanded from us nothing less than from a men’s regiment”.[35]
This general lack of recognition, with the exception of the 46th Battalion, could be in part due to the fact that some of the earlier pilot stars died before the end of the war, like the famous Osipenko and later Raskova. When they were object of the press, these women were depicted as traditional women that remained so in the front. All in all, there was not any large-scale propaganda campaign about female pilots during the war. Most of the propaganda was aimed at boosting the morale of the women, rather than at disclosing their involvement in the war. Soviets manifested in this matter some sort of conservatism. If propaganda tried to convince men to accept women as soldiers, it was, at least, an ill-conceived campaign.
Male Reactions towards their Female Comrades
Even in the most difficult times of the war, women were not conscripted, they went all voluntarily to the front because their Rodina had been invaded. Women suffered the double burden of proving themselves in combat for their own survival and were also tested by their comrades and fellow citizens. Their constant struggle was to prove that they could be as efficient as men in combat. Men’s reaction to the presence of women in the troop was ambiguous. In mixed units, there were clearly romantic and sexual relationships. In the battlefield, intimate relationships between soldiers were strictly forbidden, however it was understood as a natural, human phenomenon, especially due to the constant fear of death without having loved.[36] However, Soviet women’s memoirs state that most relationships were more familial and paternal than sexual, for instance, male combatants referred to them as “sister” or “daughter”.
On the other hand, for more than a few it was a great opportunity to harass and make women sexually available to them. Female soldiers were frequently victims of humiliation and violence.[37] They did not only face a misogynist enemy that nicknamed the fierce riflewomen as “beasts” and “amazons devoid of femininity”,[38] but were surrounded by a predatory environment among their own male comrades and superior officers. Veterans memoirs also gather stories of harassment from the Communist Party officers. The officers sexually harassed their female soldiers and offered rations and power in exchange for sexual favours. One veteran woman recalled in an interview: “I didn’t love him. He was a good man, but I didn’t love him. (…) There were only men around, so it’s better to live with one than to be afraid of them all”.[39] Soviet female soldiers who became the lovers of high-ranking officers were despised by their equals. Male and female veterans argue that these women were merely looking for privileges and this perception was extended after the war to all women who fought on the front.
The root of these behaviours could be a feeling of threat experimented by Soviet male combatants due to women entering the army. Women soldiers destroyed the clear-cut vision of women in need of a male protector, they were able to defend themselves as well as the men, with whom they were fighting side by side.
Propaganda contributed to the declining popularity of women in the frontline among public opinion and triggered the spread of rumours about what was called the “mobile field wives”. Women were accused of going to the front in search of action in more ways than fighting. Such belief was so widespread in the Soviet Union that women veterans hid their uniforms and decorations in public, even concealing their participation in the war. They would be called “whores” on the street when they showed their uniforms. One veteran woman painfully looked back: “How did the Motherland meet us? I can’t speak without sobbing… It was forty years ago, but my cheeks still burn. The men said nothing, but the women… They shouted to us: We know what you did there! You lured our men with your young c-! Army whores… Military bitches…”.[40] One frontline veteran who got married after the war revealed when she was interviewed by Alexievich the following: “I went there as a heroine, I never thought a frontline girl could be greeted like that. (…) Her mother-in-law once wept to her husband: Who have you married? A frontline girl… You have two younger sisters. Who will want to marry them now?”.[41]
Some women who volunteered for the war already had children, left them with relatives and could not take them back after the war. As one of the veteran combatants recalled: “And after the war, when I was demobilized, she didn’t want to give my child back to me. She (the aunt) told me something like this: you can’t have a daughter, since you abandoned her when she was little and went to war. How can a mother abandon her child?”.[42] In short, women suffered ostracism, were accused of promiscuity and the expression of “field wife” was of widespread use. They were ashamed of their significant contribution to the victory. Their public embarrassment even increased after the war, when their male counterparts disregarded them in the celebrations and the elaboration of the war narrative.
Women’s Demobilization and the Aftermath of the War
There happened to be a deliberate policy aimed at downplaying the Soviet female soldier in the last moments of the war. After 1943, they were progressively given less coverage on the media, when more emphasis was given to the idea of the family.[43] In addition, once the war was over, the Red Army rapidly shut up the women units and their members were strongly discouraged from pursuing careers in the air forces. The rapid demobilization carried out by women from active duty in the aftermath of the war and their exclusion from service academies show that the Soviet government never pretended to create a prospective culture of women in the military.
In July 1945, President Kalinin spoke to the demobilized female soldiers. Albeit he recognised their heroism and strength, he was more focused on encouraging them to find as fast as possible civilian job positions. He gave them a final advice: “But allow me, as one grown wise with years, to say to you: do not give yourself airs in your future practical work. Do not talk about the services you rendered, let others do it for you. That will be better”.[44] Paradoxically enough, the same man who pinned the decoration of Hero of the Soviet Union to the female pilot Marina Raskova, was encouraging women to forget the combat service carried out for their country. Obviously, this same message would not be found in speeches directed to male veterans.
The posture of the Soviet Union towards the female soldiers was of situational acceptance rather than desirability. The fast women’s demobilization proved that gender roles had not changed a lot after the war. Women’s participation in the war was not the catalyst that some historians have depicted for achieving gender equality under the socialist doctrine. The Soviets started to undermine women’s accomplishments as soon as the war was over. They radically switched to the image of the Soviet woman as a wife, a mother and a civilian member of society. Women were constantly reminded that their place in society was not the battlefield but their homes. The testimony of some female veterans of war agrees that women are not made for the war, but for breading and caring their families. This reflects the socialization that they had in their lives in spite of the promulgated values of the Bolshevik Revolution. The analysis of the Soviet approach towards women soldiers affirms that there was a clear lack of deliberateness and coherence in their policies regarding the emancipation of women in society. The female contribution to the war was quickly obscured, and the failure to recognise their heroism is not incidental, but rather a well measured and wilful policy.
Under these circumstances, two policies set in motion in 1943 highlighted the new attitude of the Soviet regime toward female soldiers. First, they introduced segregation measures in primary and secondary schooling, differentiating subjects for boys concerning the military while girls were taught domestic skills. The second, the creation of a cadet school, the Suvorov Military School, where female students were not allowed. On top of that, many pro-natalist policies were put into place in order to compensate the great loss of population, especially male. The decline of the birth rate was almost three quarters in Moscow between 1941 and 1943.[45] The drastic impact of the conflict on the family became a priority for the government. A decree of July 1944 praised the figure of the “heroine-mothers”, those with ten children or more, and the “motherhood glory” for seven to nine children.[46] In the same way, a progressive system of grants was established, including additional ones for single mothers. The legal validity of unregistered marriages was withdrawn, whereas single women and men paid higher taxes. In a nutshell, the state reasserted the traditional gender roles and family values.
The customary importance given to motherhood in Russia, linked to Stalin’s incentive for natality in the 1930s, together with the impediment to abortion, the absence of birth control systems and the increasing struggle to reach divorce all aimed at replacing the millions of casualties of the Great Patriotic War. Besides, there was the need for civil workforce after the war. In 1945, women were the 63% of workforce in Moscow.[47] It is rooted in the Russian mindset that motherhood goes before career. Some of these veterans also sustain that having a professional career in the army and a family at once are incompatible.
The participation of Soviet women in combat has been deliberately silenced. This sort of amnesia is not unique to the Soviet Union. As Nancy Goldman states: “This is a phenomenon that was almost universal in the 20th century utilization of women (…). The willingness of the military to use women for the most dangerous missions in the emergency of a desperate struggle and then to demobilize them after the emergency is over. However, even maximum participation in quantity and quality in a combat war situation does not guarantee equality in the service, in other walks of life, or in the post-war society.”[48] She argues that the same phenomena occurred in Yugoslavia, Vietnam and Israel. A tendency to switch back to old hierarchies is commonplace in human history. Any depiction of the female soldier was overshadowed by her role as the rebuilder of civilian society, a mother and a wife.
After Stalin’s death in 1953 and the progressive opening of the Soviet Union, the political climate allowed WWII female veterans to take pride of their participation in the war. They wished to be remembered for the service rendered to their country. Since there was no commemoration event for them, they designed their own. Strong collective feelings endure and have made it possible for their voices to be risen after all the silencing and ordeal they have suffered. In fact, their involvement has been partially censored until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.
These female veterans felt betrayed, as one stated: “Now I’m often invited to meetings at the war museum… Asked to lead excursions. Yes, now. Forty years later!”.[49] Thanks to the gathering of testimonies made by Alexievich, we can establish a pattern of symptoms that women veterans suffered: they despise the red colour since they associate it with the blood, and acknowledge being obsessed with its smell. On the other hand, they manifested clear PTSD, as one testimony shows about a female combatant: “She doesn’t look herself, she’s quiet, doesn’t speak to anyone, and she cries out during the night. Where’s her smile, where’s her laughter? You know how cheerful she used to be. Now she never jokes”.[50] When some of them received the news about the victory, they felt fear above all since they did not know what their destiny would be.
In the end, the government failed to recognise women’s achievements and let them down to meet their post-war needs. It was a premeditated decision that female combatants were absent from the victory parade in May 1945.[51] The myth in which the Great Patriotic War turned into thanks to Stalin’s politics set the ground for the omission of the participation of women soldiers in the war. After the war, Soviet politics gave prominence to the role of women at home given the gender population imbalance, which rose the need to repopulate the Soviet Union. The death toll of tens of millions lives lost form male soldiers overshadowed the hundreds of thousands of female lives.[52] On the other hand, some women were encouraged to continue their professional careers due to the great deficit of male counterparts, which increased the chances for some women in male-dominated occupations. All in all, the price to pay for this little impulse in women’s emancipation was at a great cost.
Finally, in order to establish a comparison with current times, we can assert that there were more women involved in the aviation during WWII than nowadays. By 1941, nearly one third of all Soviet pilots were female, but after the war, Soviet women were classified as physiologically unsuitable for becoming even civilian pilots. Therefore, the number dropped drastically. Nevertheless, it must be highlighted that some of the airwomen from Raskova’s regiments were allowed to continue their careers in aviation, being these the clear exceptions. Even today, it is practically impossible for Russian women to become pilots. The causes are financial constraints, the lack of state support and clear gender biases. In 1998, there were no women flying in either commercial or military aircraft. Fortunately, in 2017, the Russian Air Force did accept a couple of dozens of women into pilot training for the first time after WWII.[53]
Conclusions
In general terms, Soviet female soldiers during WWII met great resistance due to their gender. Men’s first reaction was quite hostile, however, when they showed their capabilities in combat, their acceptance increased. They suffered harassment from their counterparts, the enemy, and even from the public opinion once the war was over.
The Soviet government failed to acknowledge women’s contribution to the victory. The airwomen became the female face of the war and arose as the exception, accounting with a more positive reputation. The official version of the Great Patriotic War turned Soviet female soldiers into husband-hunters and prostitutes. In 1943, there was already a shift in the image displayed of women back to the old times as wives, mothers, and builders of the civilian society. The patriotic commitment of young Soviet women was discredited by the Stalinist government, whose new top-list priority was to repopulate the country, rather than achieving gender equality. The Soviet women’s contribution to the war, and thus to the Soviet victory, has been silenced to an unprecedent extent in history.
Therefore, we conclude that the employment of female combatants by the Soviet Union stemmed from the state crisis situation and served the purposes of utility and convenience, as it was the case when they performed as labour force. Women built socialism side by side with men. Despite the theoretical equal rights, they were granted a second-class citizenship rooted in the deeply traditional Russian culture. In other words, real gender equality in the Soviet Union under socialist doctrine did not occur as it has been portrayed by many historians along the last decades. The women who fought on the front were forced to renounce to their gender traits while they were abused because of their nature. Historically, female soldiers have been compelled to behave in a way considered as male by the cultural tradition. Still nowadays, women are trapped in the male-centered military culture, which collides against their desire not to lose their gender identity. The case of the Soviet female soldiers is only part of a bigger picture in which the female contribution to history has been neglected. They have been repeatedly betrayed by their male counterparts and relegated to the category of secondary actresses under the existing male-centered social, political and cultural status quo.
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[1] Keegan, J. (1994): A History of Warfare, Vintage Books.
[2] Chickering, Förster and Greiner (2005): A World at Total War, Cambridge, p.233.
[3] Campbell, D. (1993): “Women in Combat: The World War II Experience in the United States, Great Britain, Germany and the Soviet Union”, Journal of Military History, 57, nº2, p. 301.
[4] Krylova, A. (2010): Soviet Women in Combat, Cambridge University Press, p. 13.
[5] Sanborn, J. A. (2003): Drafting the Russian Nation, Oxford University, p. 21.
[6] Kowner, R. (2006): The Impact of the Russo-Japanese War, Routledge, “The war and the fate of the tsarist autocracy” by Jonathan Frankel, p. 55.
[7] Cornish, N. (2014): The Russian Army in the First World War, Pen and Sword, p.14.
[8] Miller, A. (2008): Romanov Empire and Nationalism: Essays in the Methodology of Historical Research, Central European University Press, p.61.
[9] Sanborn, J. A. (2003), p.62.
[10] Huguet, M. (2019): “Patriotic Women in the Russia in 1917”, Journal of Historiography, nº31, p. 43.
[11] Sanborn, J.A (2003), p. 206.
[12] Sanborn, J. A. (2003), p. 149.
[13] Huguet, M. (2019), p. 50.
[14] Yurlova, M. (2010): Cossack Girl, Helyograph.
[15] Chickering, Förster and Greiner (2005), p. 234.
[16] Velikanova, O. (2018): Mass Political Culture Under Stalinism: Popular Discussion of the Soviet Constitution of 1936¸Palgrave Macmillan, p. 158.
[17] Corbesero, S. (2010): “Femininity (Con)scripted: Female Images in Soviet Wartime Postwar Propaganda, 1941-1945.”, Aspasia, Vol. 4, p. 107.
[18] Alexievich, S. (2017): The Unwomanly Face of War, Penguin Books, p. 197.
[19] Garrard and Garrard (1993): World War 2 and the Soviet People, St. Martin’s Press, p. 59.
[20] Pennington, R. (2002): Wings, Women and War, University Press of Kansas, p.1.
[21] Garrard and Garrard (1993), p. 61.
[22] Overy, R. (1997): Russia’s War: A History of the Soviet’s Effort: 1941-1945, Penguin Books, p. 241.
[23] De Jesús, M. (2019): “Experiences of Soviet Women Combatants during World War II”, History Theses, nº 41, p. 13.
[24] Pennington, R. (2002), p. 13.
[25] Ibid., p. 18.
[26] Pennington, R. (2002), p.26.
[27] Ibid., p. 29.
[28] Ibid., p. 125.
[29] Pennington, R. (2002), p. 129.
[30] Wein, E. (2019): A Thousand Sisters, HarperCollins, p. 127.
[31] Pennington, R. (2002), p. 58.
[32] Corbesero, S. (2010), p. 107.
[33] Pennington, R. (2002) p. 61.
[34] Ibid., p. 125.
[35] Ibid., p. 89.
[36] Markvick, R. D. (2008): “A Sacred Duty: Red Army Women Veterans Remembering the Great Fatherland War, 1941-1945”, Australian Journal of Politics and History, Vol. 54, Nº 3, p. 417.
[37] Huguet, M. (2019), p. 49.
[38] Markvick. R. D. (2008), p. 407.
[39] Alexievich, S. (2017), p.235.
[40] Alexievich, S. (2017), p. 248.
[41] Ibid., p. 328.
[42] Ibid., p. 288.
[43] Pennington, R. (2002), p. 67.
[44] Alexievich, S. (2017), p. 68.
[45] Chickering, Förster and Greiner (2005), p. 238.
[46] Ibid., p. 238.
[47] Pennington, R. (2002), p. 173.
[48] Goldman, N. L. (1982): Female Soldiers – Combatants or Noncombatants? Historical and Contemporary Perspectives, Praeger.
[49] Alexievich, S. (2017) p. 110.
[50] Ibid., p. 174.
[51] Thurston and Bonwetsch (2000): The People’s War. Responses to World War II in the Soviet Union, University of Illinois Press, p. 226.
[52] Chickering, Förster and Greiner (2005), p. 242.
[53] Wein, E. (2019) p.129.
Editado por: Global Strategy. Lugar de edición: Granada (España). ISSN 2695-8937
Octavio Aláez Feal
Josep Baqués
Alberto Bueno
Guillermo Talavera Cejudo