Soviet Union: The Second World War (1941--1945)
The Soviet people fought World War II with unprecedented heroism making tremendous sacrifices in blood and treasure. To them it was an all-out war against an adversary whose designs for the USSR were more sinister than for other occupied countries in Europe. This included not just elimination of the Soviet state grabbing its resources; but also physical elimination of the key part of its population and exiling the remainder to far remote areas without any infrastructure and consigning them to natural death.
For the Soviet people, it was a war about saving the country from extinction. Therefore literally translated from Russian, it was 'Great War for Fatherland’ although the widespread English translation is “Great Patriotic War”. Twenty-seven million people perished in this war. Large swathes of the country’s most developed regions lay in ruins. The country had to bear the brunt of onslaught by Hitler’s war machine. Before the allies delayed opening of the second front in Europe till 1944 (probably in expectation for Hitler to complete annihilation of USSR), the USSR and the armed underground guerrilla movement in occupied countries were the only forces taking on fascist aggressors.
The advantage of Soviet central planning and the military-defense capabilities built during socialist industrialization were on vivid display during this war. In the initial stages of the war when USSR suffered series of setbacks on military front, the Soviet government mounted unprecedented coordinated efforts to evacuate from endangered zones key civilian industries, including military-industrial complexes producing battle tanks, other military hardware and war supplies to safer zones inside the country in Central Asia, Kazakhstan, Ural and western Siberia. This evacuation of industry in the second half of 1941 and early 1942 and restarting production in resettled areas illustrated the astonishing organizational capability of the party and the state. It was a major feat that ensured final victory in the war. The other unprecedented mobilization effort was to replace industry workers who went to war by their women compatriots left behind. Women and girls took on their shoulders the burden of heavy industrial jobs. In the collective farms also, they drove tractors and combines. Even after the war, women had to stay in these jobs because many men who went to the battlefield didn’t return. This is the reason why March 8, the International Women’s Day, has an entirely different connotation in Russia and is widely celebrated throughout the country to pay homage to enormous sacrifices women made in Soviet nation building.
The Great Patriotic War was a watershed moment in the history of the USSR. Dealing a crushing blow to the retreating German army in the final hours of the war, the Red Army heralded victory by raising the Soviet flag on top of Reichstag, the citadel of Nazism, on 2 May 1945. The Soviet Union emerged from World War II not only as a decisive winner but also a militarily and industrially powerful country. It was poised to take the role of superpower and along with the allies, the US and UK, redrew the borders of post-war Europe paving the way for emergence of a new world order. As a result, the borders of the USSR changed by annexation of new territories. The German city, Konigsberg, became the westernmost outpost of the Soviet Union on the Baltic Sea and renamed Kaliningrad. Also territories from Poland and Hungary were ceded to join the USSR as western regions of the Ukrainian SSR. In the eastern Pacific, four Japanese Islands north of Hokkaido – Etorofu, Kunashiri, Shikotan, and Habomai – were annexed as South Kuril district of Sakhalin region in the Far East.
For the USSR, it was a historic opportunity to push its invisible borders deep into Europe creating a buffer zone of security. With active assistance of the Soviet Union and the presence of the Red Army, the left-communist forces that played an important role in the underground insurgent movements against the fascist invaders gained the upper hand and seized political power. Soon, in a number of countries in Eastern Europe (Bulgaria, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia), communist parties came to power and established the Soviet model of building socialism. Germany was also bifurcated into two. The eastern part under the Soviet occupation was converted into the German Democratic Republic (GDR). The western part became the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) under US control. The capital Berlin was also divided. The eastern part became the capital of GDR. West Berlin was converted into an autonomous protectorate under Anglo-American control. Thus, the end of the Second World War led to a new geopolitical reality – the division of the world into two camps distinct by economic system and political ideology – East and West. The East marked the emergence of a world socialist system incorporating the new-born Eastern European socialist states under the leadership of the Soviet Union. The West symbolized the alliance of traditional European powers with the developed capitalist economic system (UK, France, FRG, Italy) led by the United States. To make the point that this division was essentially confrontational with containment of the adversary at the heart of strategy, both camps developed their own military alliances. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the western military alliance, was established in 1949 followed by the emergence in 1955 of the eastern military block, Warsaw Pact (formally the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance).
Posted Jul 11, 2026, 8:48 PM UTC