Russia at war 1941-1945

Eisenhower's choice. But, as Stettinius says: "I know of no evidence to support the charge that President Roosevelt agreed at Yalta that American troops should not capture Berlin ahead of the Red Army." (Roosevelt and the Russians: The Yalta Conference, London 1950, p. 264). The fact remains that had the Western Powers occupied Berlin before the Russians, it would have created violent anti-American feeling in Russia, especially in the Army. Roosevelt was no doubt aware of it. By the time Truman took over, the final

Russian offensive against Berlin was on the point of starting.]

It is probably true to say that the Red Army as a whole was prepared to lose many

thousands of men in the Battle of Berlin, rather than see the British and Americans get there first with a minimum loss of life. It was, obviously, also politically important, from the Russian standpoint, to record in every German mind the fact that Berlin had not been voluntarily surrendered to the Western Allies, but had been conquered by the Russians in bloody battle.

A very large number of new questions arose during the latter half of 1944, now that the war was moving to its close—questions concerning foreign policy, internal policy, as well as a variety of cultural and ideological problems. A paradoxical aspect of Russia at that time was that the gigantic human losses it had suffered and the immense devastation wrought by the retreating German armies, as well as great hardships and shortages in both town and country, were combined with a nation-wide feeling of pride and an

immense sense of achievement.

The Soviet Union was faced with the vast problem of economic reconstruction and the at least equally serious population problem. Today it is estimated that, by the end of the war, the Soviet Union had lost, in one way or another, about twenty million people,

among them at least seven million soldiers. Although no exact figures are available, it would seem that these seven million include some three million soldiers who died in

German captivity. Further, several million civilians died under the German occupation, including about two million Jews who were massacred, besides the victims of the

German anti-partisan punitive expeditions; about a million people died in Leningrad

alone, while the sharp lowering of living and food conditions throughout Russia, the shortage of medical supplies, etc., must account for a few million more deaths. Several hundred thousand also died in the various evacuations in 1941 and 1942, in the strafing of refugees and the bombings of cities. Thus in Stalingrad alone some 60,000 civilians were killed.

One of the characteristic developments of 1944 was the new Family Code embodied in

the Supreme Soviet Decree of July 8, 1944. The two main purposes of the reform were to discourage "loose living" after the war, and to increase the birth-rate. The decree established the Order of "Mother-Heroine" for mothers of ten or more live children, the Order (three classes) of "Motherly Glory" for mothers of nine, eight or seven live children, and the "Motherhood Medal" (two classes) for mothers of six or five live children. A progressive scale of monetary grants was laid down. Thus, at the birth of a third child the mother received 400 roubles, at the birth of the fourth, 1,300 roubles, and so on, till 5,000 roubles for the tenth, eleventh, etc., child. Especially after the monetary reform of 1947 it became positively good business to produce children ad infinitum. The system was, in substance, not unlike the French allocations familiales established after the Liberation.

The same decree made divorce very much more difficult, troublesome, and costly than it had been. The most controversial part of the decree concerned "lone" (i.e. unmarried) mothers. Alimony was abolished, though not retroactively. Monetary grants were allowed to unmarried mothers, and they could also, if they wished, hand their child, or children, over to a. State institution, with the option of claiming them back at any time. This measure was dictated partly by wartime conditions which, especially in the war zones and the newly-liberated areas, made it both difficult and embarrassing to enquire too closely into a child's parentage. Secondly, in view of the larger number of women than men in Russia towards the end of the war, this decree was, in fact, intended to encourage the production of "illegitimate" children by relieving unmarried mothers of all, or most of the financial responsibility for them. The rather crude demographic principle underlying it was "illegitimate children, rather than none at all". In later years, this part of the 1944

decree was to be severely criticised, since, with the encouragement it gave the

professional seducer, it went counter to the "cult of the family" and that high standard of morals the rest of the decree was striving to bring about, notably by making the