Stories about soldier's ingenuity during the Great Patriotic War. Soldier's life during the war The dwelling of the soldiers during the Second World War

Camp of Catherine's soldiers. Illustration by Alexandre Benois for the publication "Pictures on Russian History". 1912 Wikimedia Commons

A recruit of the 18th century, after a long journey, ended up in his regiment, which became a home for young soldiers - after all, service in the 18th century was lifelong. Only from 1793 was her term limited to 25 years. The recruit took an oath that forever separated him from his former life; received from the treasury a hat, a caftan, a cloak-epancha, a camisole with trousers, a tie, boots, shoes, stockings, undershirts and trousers.

The "Instruction of the colonel's cavalry regiment" of 1766 prescribed to teach the privates "to clean and screw up trousers, gloves, a sling and a harness, tie a hat, put a casket on it and put on boots, put spurs on them, plant a braid, put on a uniform, and then stand in the required a soldier's figure, to walk simply and to march ... and when he gets used to everything, begin to teach rifle techniques, horse and foot exercise. It took a lot of time to teach the peasant son to behave valiantly, "so that the peasant's vile habit, evasion, antics, scratching when talking were completely exterminated from him." The soldiers had to shave, but they were allowed to grow mustaches; hair was worn long, to the shoulders, and on ceremonial days they were powdered with flour. In the 1930s, soldiers were ordered to wear curls and braids.

It took a lot of time, "so that the peasant's vile habit, evasion, antics, scratching during conversation were completely exterminated from him"

Coming to a company or squadron, yesterday's communal peasants were included in their usual form of organization - a soldier's artel ("so that there were at least eight people in porridge"). In the absence of a developed supply system (and the shops and shops that are familiar to us), Russian soldiers have adapted to provide themselves with everything they need. Old-timers taught newcomers, experienced and skillful ones bought additional provisions with artel money, repaired ammunition themselves and sewed uniforms and shirts from state-owned cloth and linen; Money from salaries, earnings and awards was deducted to the artel cash desk, at the head of which the soldiers elected a sedate and authoritative "expenditor", or company headman.

This arrangement of military life made the Russian army of the 18th century socially and nationally homogeneous. The feeling of connection in battle provided mutual assistance, supported the morale of the soldier. From the very first days, the recruit was told that now “he is no longer a peasant, but a soldier, who by his name and rank is superior to all his previous ranks, differs from them indisputably in honor and glory,” since he, “not sparing his life, provides of his fellow citizens, defends the fatherland ... and thus deserves the gratitude and mercy of the Sovereign, the gratitude of fellow countrymen and the prayers of spiritual ranks. Recruits were told the history of their regiment, mentioning the battles where this regiment participated, and the names of heroes and generals. In the army, yesterday's "mean peasant" ceased to be a serf, if he had been before. A peasant boy became a "state servant" and in the era of constant wars he could rise to the rank of non-commissioned officer and even - if he was lucky - to the chief officer. The "Table of Ranks" of Peter I opened the way to obtaining a noble rank - in this way, about a quarter of the infantry officers of the Peter's army "came out to the people". For exemplary service, an increase in salary, awarding a medal, promotion to corporal, sergeant was provided. "Faithful and true servants of the fatherland" were transferred from the army to the guards, received medals for battles; for distinction in the service, the soldiers were awarded "a ruble" with a glass of wine.

A serviceman who had seen distant lands on campaigns forever broke with his former life. The regiments, which consisted of former serfs, did not hesitate to suppress popular unrest, and in the 18th and 19th centuries the soldier did not feel like a peasant. And in everyday practice, the soldier got used to living at the expense of the townsfolk. Throughout the 18th century, the Russian army did not have barracks. In peacetime, it was lodged in the homes of rural and urban residents, who were supposed to provide military premises, beds and firewood. Release from this duty was a rare privilege.

In everyday practice, the soldier got used to living at the expense of the townsfolk.

Fusiliers of infantry regiments 1700-1720 From the book "Historical description of clothing and weapons Russian troops", 1842

In the short days of rest from battles and campaigns, the soldiers walked with might and main. In 1708, during the difficult Northern War, the brave dragoons “became quarters in the towns. Wine and beer were collected before the convoy. And a certain rank of the gentry drank unbearably. They reproached those viciously, and also beat them with the sovereign's name. But fornication still appeared. Imali in the corners of the dragoons of the shvadrony gentry. There were those young children and there is no passage from these whores to girls and women "gentry"- noblemen (gentry) who served in the dragoon squadron ("shkvadron"). These young nobles did not give the women a pass.. Our colonel and worthy cavalier Mikhail Faddeyich Chulishov ordered to frighten all those who are impudent and beat them with batogs.<…>And those dragoons and granodirs, who were from the battles of small battles, they rested and drank koumiss with Kalmyks and Tatars, flavored with vodka, and then fought with fists with the neighboring regiment. De we, reproached, fought and lost our bellies, and de you hovil and sveev Svei- Swedes. were afraid. And in the distant shvadron they staggered and barked obscenely, and the colonels did not know what to do. By the sovereign's command, the most malicious were sent and broadcast and fought in batogs on the goats in front of all the front. And two of ours from the shkvadron also got the dragoon Akinfiy Krask and Ivan Sofiykin. They were hung around the neck. And Krask’s tongue fell out from the strangulation, it even reached the middle of his chest, and many were amazed at this and went to look. "Official notes (diary) of Simeon Kurosh, captain of the dragoon shvadron, Roslavsky.".

And in peacetime, the stay of the troops in any place was perceived by the townsfolk as a real disaster. “He fornicates with his wife, dishonors his daughter… eats his chickens, his cattle, robs him of his money and beats him incessantly.<…>Every month, before leaving the quarters, the peasants must be gathered, questioned about their claims, and their subscriptions taken away.<…>If the peasants are dissatisfied, they are given wine to drink, they get drunk, and they sign. If, in spite of all this, they refuse to sign, then they are threatened, and they end up silent and signing, ”general Langeron described the behavior of soldiers at the checkpoint in Catherine’s time.

The soldier fornicates with his wife, dishonors his daughter, eats his chickens, his cattle, takes his money and beats him incessantly.

The officers had the opportunity for more refined leisure - especially abroad. “... All other officers of our regiment, not only young, but also elderly, were engaged in completely different matters and concerns. All of them, almost in general, their zealous desire to be in Koenigsberg stemmed from a completely different source than mine. They had heard enough that Konigsberg is a city that is full of everything that can satisfy and satiate the passions of the young and those who spend their lives in luxury and debauchery, namely: that there was a great many taverns and billiards and other places of entertainment; that you can get anything in it, and even more so, that the female sex in it is too prone to lust and that there is a great many young women in it, practicing dishonest needlework and selling their honor and chastity for money.
<…>Before two weeks had even passed, when, to my great surprise, I heard that there was not a single tavern left in the city, not a single wine cellar, not a single billiards and not a single obscene house, which would be unknown to our gentlemen officers, but that not only are they all on the register, but quite a lot of them have already made close acquaintances, partly with their mistresses, partly with other local residents, and some have already taken them to themselves and for their maintenance, and all in general have already drowned in all the luxuries and debauchery ”, - Andrey Bolotov, the former lieutenant of the infantry regiment of the Arkhangelsk city, recalled about his stay in Koenigsberg conquered by Russian troops in 1758.

If in relation to the peasants "impudence" was allowed, then in the "front" discipline was demanded from the soldiers. The soldiers' poems of that era truthfully describe the daily drill:

You go to the guard - so grief,
And you will come home - and twice,
In the guard we are tormented,
And how you change - learning! ..
Suspenders are on guard,
Wait for stretch marks for training.
Stand up straight and stretch
Don't chase the pokes
Slaps and kicks
Take it like pancakes.

Violators under the "Military Article" were expected to be punished, which depended on the degree of misconduct and were determined by a military court. For "magic" was supposed to be burned, for the desecration of icons - cutting off the head. The most common punishment in the army was "chasing gauntlets", when the offender was led with his hands tied to a gun between two ranks of soldiers who struck him on the back with thick rods. The one who committed the offense for the first time was taken through the entire regiment 6 times, the one who committed the offense again - 12 times. Strictly asked for the poor maintenance of weapons, for deliberate damage to it or for "leaving a gun in the field"; sellers and buyers were punished for selling or losing their uniforms. For repeating this offense three times, the guilty person was sentenced to death. Theft, drunkenness and fighting were common crimes for the servicemen. The punishment followed for "inattention in the ranks", for "being late in the ranks." A latecomer for the first time "will be taken for guard or for two hours, three fuzes Fusee- smoothbore flintlock gun. on the shoulder". A latecomer for the second time was supposed to be arrested for two days or "six muskets per shoulder." Those who were late for the third time were punished with gauntlets. For talking in the ranks was supposed to be "deprivation of salary." For negligent guard duty in peacetime, a “serious punishment” awaited the soldier, and in wartime, the death penalty.

For "sorcery" was supposed to be burned, for the desecration of icons - cutting off the head

Especially severely punished for the escape. Back in 1705, a decree was issued according to which, of the three fugitives caught, one was executed by lot, and the other two were exiled to eternal hard labor. The execution took place in the regiment from which the soldier fled. The flight from the army took on a wide scale, and the government had to issue special appeals to deserters with the promise of forgiveness for those who voluntarily returned to duty. In the 1730s, the situation of the soldiers worsened, which led to an increase in the number of fugitives, especially among recruits. The penalties were also increased. The fugitives were expected either by execution or hard labor. One of the decrees of the Senate of 1730 reads: “Which recruits learn to run abroad and will be caught, then from the first breeders, for fear of others, they will be executed by death, hanged; but for the rest, who are not breeders themselves, to inflict political death and exile them to Siberia for government work.

The usual joy in soldier's life was to receive a salary. It was different and depended on the type of troops. The soldiers of the internal garrisons were paid the least - their salary in the 60s of the 18th century was 7 rubles. 63 kop. in year; and cavalrymen received the most - 21 rubles. 88 kop. If we take into account that, for example, a horse cost 12 rubles, then this was not so little, but the soldiers did not see this money. Something went for debts or into the hands of resourceful marketers, something - to the artel cash desk. It also happened that the colonel appropriated these soldiers' pennies, forcing the rest of the officers of the regiment to steal, since they all had to sign expenditure items.

The rest of the salary the soldier squandered in a tavern, where sometimes, in dashing courage, he could “scold everyone obscenely and call himself a king” or argue: with whom exactly did Empress Anna Ioannovna “live prodigally” - with Duke Biron or with General Minich? Drinking buddies, as expected, immediately denounced, and the talker had to justify himself with the “immeasurable drunkenness” usual in such cases. In the best case, the case ended in “chasing gauntlets” in their native regiment, in the worst case, with a whip and exile to distant garrisons.

The soldier could argue with whom exactly did Empress Anna Ioannovna "live in prodigality" - with Duke Biron or with General Minich?

Bored in the garrison service, the young soldier Semyon Efremov once shared with a colleague: “Pray to God that the Turk gets up, then we would get out of here.” He escaped punishment only by explaining his desire to start the war by the fact that "while young, he can serve." The old servicemen, who had already smelled gunpowder, thought not only about feats - among the “material evidence” in the affairs of the Secret Chancellery, conspiracies seized from them were preserved: unfaithful tongues and from all kinds of military weapons ... but make me, your servant Mikhail, like a lion with strength. Others, like ordinary Semyon Popov, were driven by longing and drill to terrible blasphemy: the soldier wrote with his own blood a “letter of apostasy”, in which he “summoned the devil to himself and demanded wealth from him ... so that through that wealth he could leave military service.”

And yet the war gave a chance to the lucky. Suvorov, who knew perfectly well the psychology of a soldier, in his instruction “The Science of Victory” mentioned not only speed, onslaught and bayonet attack, but also “holy booty” - and told how in Ishmael, taken by a brutal assault under his command, the soldiers “divided gold and silver in handfuls ". True, not everyone was so lucky. To the rest, “who remained alive — that honor and glory!” - promised the same "Science to win."

However, the army suffered the biggest losses not from the enemy, but from diseases and the lack of doctors and medicines. “Walking around the camp at sunset, I saw some regimental soldiers digging holes for their dead brethren, others already burying, and still others completely buried. In the army, quite a few suffer from diarrhea and putrid fevers; when officers also move into the realm of the dead, for whom, during their illness, they are certainly better looked after, and doctors use their own medicines for money, then how can soldiers not die, left in illness to their fate and for which medicines are either dissatisfied, or absolutely not available in other shelves. Diseases are born from the fact that the army stands in a square, a quadrangle, that defecating feces, although the wind blows a little, spreads a very bad smell through the air, that Liman water, being used raw, is very unhealthy, and vinegar is not divided among the soldiers, which On the shore, dead corpses are visible everywhere, drowned in the estuary in the three battles that took place on it ”- this is how army official Roman Tsebrikov described the siege of the Turkish fortress Ochakov in 1788.

For the majority, the usual soldier's fate fell: endless marches across the steppe or mountains in the heat or mud, bivouacs and overnight stays in the open, long evenings in "winter-apartments" in peasant huts.

UDK94(47)"1941/45"

RECREATION AND LEISURE AS A COMPONENT OF DAILY LIFE OF THE RED ARMY DURING THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR

Larionov Alexey Edislavovich, candidate historical sciences, Associate Professor of the Department of History and Political Science, [email protected]

Moscow

This article is devoted to the problem of rest and leisure of the military personnel of the active army (RKKA) during the years of the Great Patriotic War. On the basis of memoirs and archival sources, various aspects of the organization of recreation for soldiers and officers of the Red Army in 1941-1945 are considered, a comprehensive analysis of the historical facts and examples given in the context of the history of military everyday life and the events of the Great Patriotic War is carried out. Conclusions are drawn about the significant influence of the specifics of rest and leisure on the combat capability of units and formations of the Red Army and on the outcome of the war as a whole.

This article is dedicated to so far uncharted problem of leisure and recreation of soldiers of the army (Red Army) during World War II. The author considered different aspects of organization of leisure of officers and soldiers of the Red Army in 1941-1945, performed a comprehensive analysis of historical facts, and cited examples in the context of military history and the everyday events of the Great Patriotic War. All this is based on the memoirs and archival sources. The article presented conclusions about the significant impact of specific recreation and leisure activities on fighting efficiency of units and formations of the Red Army and on the outcome of war in general.

Key words: war, leisure, recreation, everyday life.

Keywords: War, leisure, recreation, everyday life.

Few people can remain indifferent to the famous painting by the Soviet artist Yu.M. Neprintsev "Rest after the battle", written in 1960, but conceived by him during the war years, when he heard lines from the poem "Vasily Terkin" in a soldier's dugout. This picture seems to open a window for us to that facet of the Great Patriotic War, which, most often, remains outside the scope of our main attention - the soldiers do not go on the attack here and do not repel the onslaught of the enemy, but rest, using the rare, and for many the last, an opportunity to renounce the terrible reality of war even for a brief moment, to feel like just people, to remember home, loved ones, to write or read a letter, to sing a song.

I remember how, in a conversation with one of the veterans during the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Victory (1995), I was literally struck by one of his remarks in response to the question of one of the young interlocutors about whether it was scary in the war. Nikolai Vasilyevich Chervyakov, a native of the village of Kostino, Dmitrovsky district, Moscow region, then answered literally

the following: “After you walk 30 kilometers in the autumn rain with a full gear, you get so tired that you don’t even think about death. Just to fall and sleep. Even if they kill me, thank God, at least I can rest.” It turns out that war is not only battles and exploits, but also the hardest work, absorbing all the moral and physical strength of a person. But a person cannot only spend them - he needs at least short respite, pauses, if only in order to go into battle again later.

What was the rest of Soviet soldiers and officers during the Great Patriotic War, how did they manage their free time, did they have a lot of it, in what ways did they restore their strength, relieve inhuman stress? We will try to answer these and related questions in this article.

The first thing to understand when talking about the leisure and recreation of military personnel is that any army is a strictly regulated social organism in which formalized norms and standards apply to any aspect of life. That is why it would be a mistake to believe that a soldier's rest is the time of his complete freedom. The bulk of the leisure issues of the Red Army was under the jurisdiction of the Main Political Directorate (Glavpur) of the Red Army, which, according to the organizational structure approved as early as November 1, 1938, included the Department of Culture and Propaganda.1 It is obvious that the organization of cultural leisure was inextricably linked with the tasks of the party political education of personnel . Such was the view "from above" that existed before the war, which did not undergo significant changes in this regard even in wartime. That is why political workers at various levels often tried to fill the soldiers' leisure time with all sorts of educational and political conversations. However, this was perceived in a real combat situation in different ways, by no means always unambiguously and not always in the way that the organizers expected. Much here depended on the personality of a particular political worker, his ability to find a common language with the soldiers, to understand what they really want to hear and what words can stir their hearts.

Therefore, in the memoirs of front-line soldiers who fought in various ranks and in different branches of the military, one can find diametrically opposed assessments of political workers, their significance and the role played. While some veterans recognize their importance and necessity, others do not hide their negative attitude, frankly stating that the political worker only interfered with normal rest after battles and difficult transitions. In order not to be unfounded, I will give a few quotes from

1 As follows from archival documents, in October 1941. the Department of Cultural and Educational Institutions was included, and the Department of Agitation and Propaganda itself in July 1942. was transformed into a special Department of Agitation and Propaganda GLAVPURKKA. - See TsAMO, fund 32, op. 11302, 11315.

memoirs of participants in the Great Patriotic War, illustrating both the first and second points of view.

For example, in the memoirs of the commander of a tank company, senior lieutenant Ion Lazarevich Degen, the reasons for the negative attitude towards political workers are spoken quite sharply and frankly. Among other things, there is such a characteristic detail as the excessive activity of political officers during lulls, which prevented the tankers from having a good rest: “... To be honest, we didn’t have much free time. During the lull, we were engaged in our equipment, training, studied the combat area and so on. Moreover, all sorts of political officers fell on our heads, holding countless, useless party and Komsomol meetings. We didn't really need to rest."

In another place of his memoirs, the same veteran again turns to the topic of relations with political workers, categorically stating that they were not needed at all in the tank troops, i.e. were in fact a hindrance. In addition, he cites a number of extremely negative characteristics of specific political workers with whom he had to meet. However, this opinion, although it has its supporters among veterans, is not the only one. Other participants in the war speak differently. For example, a veteran of anti-tank artillery, Nikolai Dmitrievich Markov, speaks of the role of political workers as follows: “I pay tribute to these people. They were the engineers of human souls. It's hard for a man in war, he needs to talk. They were cultured, polite guys. They performed their function of educating the human soul. It depends on the person, but, in principle, these are normal guys. They brought up right attitude to a person."

We can also give an example of a third opinion, relatively neutral. The veteran, who spoke it, perceived the political workers as a kind of inevitability, assessing their actions briefly: "The work of people was like that." Of course, according to several opinions, it is problematic to get a complete picture of how the fighters of the active army perceived the general efforts of political workers to educate personnel in their free time. However, one thing is clear, namely, that a certain part of the time free from military operations (or preparation for them) was necessarily engaged in moral and educational conversations, including those of an ideological and political nature. Thus, the Soviet soldier in the war was not the absolute master of his leisure, although this was precisely the dream (most often unrealizable) of the majority of military personnel, who were daily under a real and highly probable threat of death or injury. The stronger was the desire of people to relax, to escape from military everyday life.

According to the testimony of participants in the war, memories of home and family, of pre-war life, made up an essential part of conversations during rest and calm at the front. They successfully played the role of a relaxation tool, as well as filled the very existence of a soldier in the war with meaning, since they made battles, shooting at enemies and even death itself not a senseless meat grinder, but only a means of protecting a normal non-military life. The "bloody battle", in the words of Tvardovsky, really went "for the sake of life on earth." Is it necessary to talk in detail about how important it was for millions of soldiers to feel the connection with home, with their native places, with relatives and friends left hundreds and thousands of kilometers away? The front-line mail was practically the only means of maintaining this connection. Letters were written from the front and to the front from the first to the last day of the war. The triangle of writing has become a kind of symbol of the Great Patriotic War. The absence of letters from home unnerved the soldiers, lowered their overall moral condition Therefore, there is nothing surprising in the fact that from the first days of the war, the issue of normal and timely delivery of letters to the army in the field became the subject of attention at the highest state level.

Evidence of this is the Decree of the State Defense Committee of August 20, 1941, dedicated to the issues of postal communication, which became the basis for the functioning of front-line mail throughout the war:

Top secret

Moscow Kremlin

ON IMPROVING THE WORK OF TRANSPORTATION AND FORWARDING LETTERS AND SEALS TO THE RED ARMY AND IMPROVING THE WORK OF POST SERVICES IN THE COUNTRY

In order to radically improve the work of transporting and forwarding letters and seals to the Red Army and improving the work of the postal service in the country, the State Defense Committee decides:

1. Oblige the NKPS:

a) include mail cars in the composition of all fast, passenger and freight-passenger trains;

b) in the event of the accumulation of a significant amount of postal items and seals and the impossibility of transporting them in ordinary mail cars, allocate freight cars at the request of the NKSsvyaz authorities, attaching them to direct block trains.

2. Prohibit the further mobilization of vehicles and horse stock engaged in the transportation of postal correspondence and printing.

3. Enter from August 22, 1941. obligatory paid labor duties of the population to ensure the uninterrupted transportation and delivery of mail and printing on intra-republican (intra-regional and intra-district) postal routes. Payment for the carriage of mail shall be made in accordance with the norms of payment for the carriage of mail established by the NCC for each region (krai, republic).

The Councils of People's Commissars of the Union and Autonomous Republics and the regional (territorial) executive committees of the Soviets of Working People's Deputies to ensure the uninterrupted allocation of horse-drawn transport for the indicated purposes at the request of local bodies of the NKSvyaz.

4. In order to improve the transportation and delivery of mail and print to the active units of the Red Army, to oblige the GUGVF (comrade Molokov) from August 21, 1941 to daily transport Red Army letters and newspapers by transport aircraft along the following routes:

1. Leningrad - Petrozavodsk - Murmansk

2. Moscow - Leningrad

3. Moscow - headquarters of the Western Front

4. Moscow - headquarters of the Central Front

5. Moscow - Kharkov

6. Kharkov - headquarters of the Southwestern Front

7. Kharkiv - headquarters Southern Front

8. Kharkov - Rostov

5. To ensure the normal transportation of postal items and printing in the front-army link, no later than 22.VTTT.1941, allocate 20 vehicles for each front field communications department along with the driver’s staff, and a total of 140 GAZ-AA vehicles due to their mobilization in the national economy.

6. Responsibility for the uninterrupted transportation of Red Army letters and seals in the link army - military formations shall be entrusted to the Military Councils of the armies.

7. Oblige the NKVD of the USSR:

a) To render all possible assistance to the local authorities of the NKSvyaz in organizing and ensuring the timely transportation and delivery of postal correspondence and newspapers, taking under their special supervision the passage of postal correspondence and printing on the most important railway, automobile and horse-drawn tracts and mail transportation hubs;

b) organize the work of military censorship in such a way that, starting from August 21, 1941, the delay of letters in military censorship bodies, as a rule, does not exceed 36 hours.

8. To oblige NKSvyazi and NPOs to complete the formation and staffing of field communications institutions for all formations of the army no later than August 20, 1941.

J. STALIN, CHAIRMAN OF THE STATE DEFENSE COMMITTEE Peresypkin, Beria, Shaposhnikov, Chadaev - all Council of People's Commissars of the republics, regional (territory) executive committees, Central Committee, regional committees, regional committees - item 3; Comrade Molokov - item 4; Comrade Kaganovich - p.p. 1, 7-а.2

In the cited document, points 2 and 3 are of particular interest, stipulating a ban on mobilizing postal transport for extraneous needs and attracting civilian population for the transportation of mail for labor mobilization. In fact, this meant that the delivery of mail became a task of strategic importance on a par with the construction of fortifications. Therefore, it is legitimate to talk about the existence of a state-administrative tendency to organize the leisure time of the Red Army, close attention and care for their psychological rest as an important condition for the successful conduct of hostilities.

2 RGASPI, fund 644, inventory 1, d.7, ll.125-126.

page 125 of 262

Also, when analyzing this document, you should pay attention to its date and level. August 1941 is the hardest time in terms of the military situation: German troops are rushing to Leningrad and Kiev, the Uman Cauldron is closed, which has become a giant grave for the 6th and 12th combined-arms armies of the Southwestern Front, the Germans and Romanians are besieging cut off from " big land» Odessa, in a terrible hurry and confusion, in the absence of air cover, the evacuation is carried out. And in this terrible time for the country, the supreme military-political leadership of the USSR at the level of Stalin himself finds it possible and necessary to discuss measures and adopt a very specific, non-ambiguous document on the issue of optimizing the delivery of mail to soldiers and commanders fighting and dying on the fronts!3 This may serve as additional, albeit indirect, evidence that the top Soviet leadership did not lose faith in the Victory even in the critical, or rather, catastrophic situation of the summer of 1941. And it was precisely a deep inner conviction, and not a phrase or gesture, calculated for a momentary external propaganda effect.

The above document may attract our attention for one more reason. The fact that the top leadership of the USSR, headed by Stalin (without whose review and sanction this decree would not have appeared at all) found an opportunity in the summer of 1941 to take care of delivering mail to the army in the field, speaks against the common thesis that fighters and commanders viewed as "cannon fodder". As you know, this mythology is very popular in liberal anti-Soviet historiography and journalism devoted to the topic of the Great Patriotic War. In the interests of historical truth, this thesis can be revised, including on the basis of factual material on military everyday life.

However, one should not exaggerate the degree of influence "from above" on the organization of soldiers' recreation and leisure in frontline conditions. General organizational and managerial efforts, even with an ideological component, did not at all mean total and petty control over what military personnel do in their free time. In this regard, it is appropriate to turn to another facet of front-line leisure - these are the performances of artists and writers in front of the soldiers and commanders of the Red Army. At one time, a stereotype was created in the public mind, according to which the arrival of singers, theater artists, poets to the front line was almost an everyday occurrence during the Great

3 It should be noted that until February 1943. in official and everyday practice, it was precisely the concepts of “fighter” (or “Red Army soldier”) and “commander” that were used, while the terms “soldier” and “officer” were associated with the pre-revolutionary past and were officially put into use in February 1943, along with the return epaulette of the old sample.

page 126 of 262

Patriotic War. The songs "Blue Handkerchief" performed by K. Shulzhenko and "Valenki" performed by N. Ruslanova became peculiar symbols. The latter performed it in May 1945 on the steps of the Reichstag in the presence of Marshal G.K. Zhukov. These really bright moments of the activity of Soviet artists left a deep impression on everyone who witnessed them or at least heard about them. However, how often did the soldiers of the first echelon of the active army really have such luck? The answer to this question can be given to some extent by "soldier's memoirs".

So, in the memoirs of the series “I fought.” collected by Artyom Drabkin. not a single (!) of the front-line soldiers cites the case of professional artists performing at the front line, answering the corresponding question in the negative. The former self-propelled gunner Electron Priklonsky, artilleryman Pyotr Demidov, battery commander of 76-mm guns Ivan Novokhatsky, former commander of a tank landing platoon Evgeny Bessonov, and others do not cite such cases in their diaries and memoirs. Ilya Ehrenburg: “We didn’t have any organized leisure. Artistic brigades or front-line ensembles have never come to us. I do not remember that writers or correspondents from central newspapers came to our brigade. Immediately after the capture of Vilnius, at a distance of 20 meters, I saw my idol of those years, famous writer and publicist Ilya Ehrenburg. His escort approached me, in the rank of captain, and said:

Junior Lieutenant, Comrade Ehrenburg wants to talk to you.

But before that I had drunk well, I reeked of alcohol from a mile away, and I was embarrassed to approach Ehrenburg. He said that I was ordered to immediately arrive at the brigade. After wildly regretted his stupidity. Ehrenburg was respected by all front-line soldiers.

Thus, the appearance of professional artists, as well as other cultural figures, on the front line was the exception rather than the rule. This applied even to those units and branches of the armed forces that were in a relatively privileged position. For example, who served in the 298th Guards Artillery Regiment of the RVGK (Reserve Supreme High Command) Nikolai Inozemtsev in his lengthy and detailed "Front Diary" never mentions the arrival of artists. This, however, does not mean that there was no cultural life at all in the units of the active army. It was simply organized at a different, actually army level. There were amateur creative teams in almost every unit and unit, and talented people gathered in them, able to provide their comrades with full-fledged cultural leisure.

page 127 of 262

Below is a typical description of the celebration of the New Year (1945) in a military unit that was on the front line. When analyzing the original source, it must be taken into account that the holiday took place at the final stage of the war, when military life was well-established, front-line amateur performance organically fit into its structure. At the beginning of the war, especially during the period of retreats and encirclements, it was hardly possible to organize such large-scale festivities.

“On the afternoon of December 31, I’m going to celebrate the New Year. The club is illuminated, in the center there is a large Christmas tree with toys, on the stage - the traditional numbers "1944" made of red light bulbs (apparently, the author's mistake, according to the chronology of the diary and the events described in it, met exactly 1945). The concert begins. The choir performs. Gymnastic etude by Tarasenko. With a wild cry and squeal, appears from the Mezentsev hall

V. clown costume. On belts, ropes and ropes, he drags a dozen dogs of all stripes and sizes. It takes a long time to seat them according to their voices, and the “soloist” of the dog choir Rosa (the chief of staff’s fox terrier) begins to howl to the harmonica of Serge Mezentsev. The number is a huge success. Several of Simonov's works are read by Safonov. The first section is over. In the second, a trio performs with "Tiritomba" and Ukrainian songs. Then Lobov, to the accompaniment of the button accordion, performs the "Officer's Waltz", the most popular piece of the winter of 1944.

The first section is over. In the second, a trio performs with Tiritomba and Ukrainian songs, then a rhythmic dance and the appearance of Serge. In difficult pirouettes, he suddenly freezes with his head turned to the notes and the entertainer shouts:

Turn over, turn over!

The number is original and causes loud laughter from the soldier audience. Jazz is playing. One after another, the favorite songs of the assembled audience are performed. The concert ends with the Krasnoarmeisky Dance, masterfully choreographed by Mezentsev. Everyone's impression of the concert, without exaggeration, is the best.”

Similar descriptions of the amateur organization of holidays and significant dates, birthdays can be found in sufficient quantities in the memoirs and diaries of front-line soldiers. However, a certain selectivity must also be noted here. It clearly follows even from the above passage. Firstly, the author is an artillery officer, not a field and anti-tank one, which was often called by the soldiers and officers who served in it "Forgive, Motherland!" or "The trunk is long - life is short!", and not less than the corps level and the Reserve Headquarters. Even the soldiers were in parts of the RVGK in a relatively privileged position.

page 128 of 262

We will not find any such descriptions in the memoirs of infantrymen, tankmen, military scouts, battalion and even regimental mortars. neither the forces nor the appropriate resources for the organization of recreation and leisure on such high level. However, the absence of opportunity does not mean the absence of desire. Therefore, as soon as a free minute fell out, a pause between battles or a break in marches, soldiers and officers of all branches of the armed forces showed amazing resourcefulness and ingenuity in organizing leisure, entertainment and recreation, both individual and collective.

“A little further to the rear, where the division headquarters was located, the political department had a large dugout club. Movies were shown there, artists who came to our bridgehead gave concerts, our front-line amateur performances performed, and other events were held. But we rarely had to visit it. Firstly, I did not want to return late through the forest to my location. Secondly, we did not find time, because we were standing in a tank-dangerous direction and we simply had no right to weaken our attention. So for all the time only saw two movies.

But we did not miss being bored - we had enough of our own home-grown artists. The driver-mechanic Semyon Pozdnyakov enjoyed special attention. He was stuffed with all kinds of stories, told in such a hilarious and funny way, no worse than any artist. A lot of guys always gathered around him, and the laughter did not stop. And if, coupled with an accordion, it turned out no worse than in the eminent theater. It is impossible to remember these wonderful moments of our front-line rest without a smile.

From the above passage, the confirmation of what has already been said is obvious - the lack of a real possibility of organized cultural recreation and its feasible replacement with free improvisations and the forces of the military personnel themselves in the intervals between battles. Apparently, the narrator never says a word about the fact that he and his comrades were offended by the inability to visit the "club", watch movies or performances by professional artists. The vast majority of soldiers and officers of the Red Army perceived the difficulties of front-line life as quite natural in

4 In the Red Army, mortars of 82 mm caliber belonged to battalion ones, and 120 mm caliber to regimental ones. See: Soviet military encyclopedia. T.5. M., 1978. S.306.

5 The unit in which Stanislav Gorsky fought was part of the 1st Belorussian Front and at the time of the events described was on the left bank of the Vistula, on the Narevsky bridgehead, preparing for the Vistula-Oder operation.

page 129 of 262

circumstances and preferred to get out of the situation on their own. From this we can draw a second intermediate conclusion: along with centralized measures to organize free time and recreation for the personnel of the Red Army during the Great Patriotic War, an equally significant, and sometimes more important role was played by independent, in the order of personal initiative, actions of the military personnel of the active army to create for themselves and their comrades in the sphere of leisure, entertainment and recreation. It can be said that in this regard, the Red Army was a completely autonomous organism in which traditions and skills for organizing recreation existed, were steadily maintained and self-reproduced, despite the permanently extreme circumstances and the high degree of personnel turnover in combat units as a result of losses during intense battles. . At the same time, as follows from memoir sources, a clear preference was given to collective forms of recreation and leisure, in which the majority of military personnel of a unit or unit acted as equal participants, and not passive spectators: this applies to jokes, songs and dances, joint memories of the house and discussion of news reported in letters. This phenomenon of collectivity as a significant factor in soldiers' recreation during the Great Patriotic War undoubtedly deserves special attention. It, like a drop of water, reflected the specifics of human relationships not only in the Red Army of the war period, but also in the Soviet society of the pre-war and war period as a traditional society in its core, whose members are connected with each other by solidarity-ideocratic ties. Here we also see the desire, characteristic of the Russian traditional society, to create autonomous and self-reproducing structures, the restoration of the usual way of life, mass equal participation in entertainment with temporary disregard for the official hierarchy and military subordination, and the creation of effective relaxation-compensatory mechanisms in extreme and even deadly conditions. The manifestation of all these sociocultural features was also facilitated by the connection of all military personnel with a common goal, the homogeneous soteriological teleology of Orthodoxy - catholic salvation. In this case, this soteriological idea was transformed into the idea of ​​the collective salvation of the Motherland. This can be confirmed by the popular songs of the war years, often performed by soldiers during their holidays. In all of them, from "Holy War" to "In the forest near the front" or "Oh, roads.", The idea of ​​a collective, common destiny, complete and complete subordination of the individual to the public, but without dissolving the former in the latter, clearly dominates, which also corresponds to the Christian ideal. , Where

the merging of the human personality with God does not mean its erasure, but only gives it fullness and perfection. The echo, the reflection of such a merger permeated the daily life of the Red Army during the Great Patriotic War, which was reflected, in particular, in examples of recreation and leisure. No matter how pathetic it may sound, but the army, organized on such ideals, was really invincible, no matter how heavy the defeats it suffered at the beginning of the war. Thus, through the prism of disparate facts of military everyday life, one can reach the level of cardinal questions in the study of the events and patterns of the Great Patriotic War and offer original answers to them.

Life and free time in any circumstances are not limited to entertainment moments. Every person always has a desire to be alone, to be distracted from any external worries and anxieties, to plunge into the world of their innermost desires and experiences. It would seem that the task is impossible for the front and the army. However, here, too, people managed to find that niche where the blood and the roar of war did not reach. It was in their souls and was expressed in correspondence with relatives and friends. The organization of postal communication in the army has already been discussed. Here we will consider only how the soldiers' need for communication was realized in life. Letters from the front and to the front went throughout the war. Read and write whenever the opportunity presented itself. When analyzing wartime correspondence stored in archives, museums and private archives, a strange feeling invariably arises: the soldiers and officers, the authors of the letters, seem to have forgotten where and in what circumstances they are. It was as if there was no war for them at these moments, but there were only relatives with whom they had not seen each other for a long time and I want to talk about things that are vital for everyone; or the war is mentioned as an unfortunate hindrance that does not allow people to live happily. In order not to be unfounded, I will give only one letter from a front-line soldier home:

“Hello, dear daughter Raechka! I congratulate you on your birthday with the hope that by this day, January 21, 1943, you will receive this letter. Dear Raechka, sincerely from the bottom of my heart I wish you great happiness, grow and be healthy. I am writing this letter to you at night New Year, in a few minutes it will be 1943. Therefore, I congratulate you at the same time on the Happy New Year 1943! Dear daughter, I am very sorry that I am not with you today, I am celebrating the New Year in our little beloved family. It is a pity that I do not have such an opportunity to see you on your birthday and hear your voice. But while the war is going on, we must destroy the Germans, and maybe I will celebrate your birthday with a feat of destroying the Fritz. This is a life-and-death war to defeat the enemy and provide you with<...>young men

page 131 of 262

a happy strong life so that you do not see the German bloody bondage. Raechka, when I return home, we will live again, everyone will forget past storms and hardships. Let's live again with music.<...>Well, now, Raechka, you need to obey your mother and grandmother, live in council with Vitya. Well, that's all, this is where I end my letter, we will be alive - these letters will go down in the history of the family and fall into the family archive. Be well, dear daughter. I kiss you hard. Your dad. January 1, 1943.”6

Almost all front-line letters breathe love and deep spiritual calm, in sharp contrast to the surrounding circumstances. Love, being the most important human need, found a place for itself in the midst of war and death, making up an important and deeply intimate part of military everyday life. Sometimes for the sake of a short date a soldier or officer committed acts unthinkable from the point of view of military discipline. Moscow militiaman Vladimir Shimkevich recalls fleeting love on the way to the front, artillery officer Pyotr Demidov writes in his memoirs about his meetings and partings with a Russian girl who survived the horrors of the occupation in Western Ukraine: “Suddenly, the division was relocated to the village of Khotyn. It was a pity to part with Anyuta, who had fallen in love with me. How long we would stay in Khotyn, no one knew, but I suddenly wanted to see my mistress: I hastily said goodbye to her then, saying only a few kind words. Began to think about how and on what to go to Baratin? The car was excluded. Bicycle!.. Soon I was already knocking on Anyuta's window. The night flew by like one hour. The parting was touching: both understood that it was unlikely that we would ever see each other again. ". Imagine, an officer of the active army, the commander of a battalion of rocket launchers (“Katyushas”), preparing for redeployment in connection with the assigned combat mission, travels several kilometers alone at night, warning only the orderly and deputy for combat training about this! In the event that he was late for the general meeting, he would have been threatened with a tribunal, but this did not frighten him. No doubt, there were a huge number of such examples, although not all of them ended as well as this one.

However, as mentioned at the beginning of this article, fatigue was an invariable companion of soldiers during the war years. Often soldiers and officers were deprived of the most minimal amenities. The more valuable they were in their eyes. In the first place were the opportunity to wash, sleep in warmth and dryness, and warm up. Often this was the best form of relaxation. Soviet soldiers showed miracles of ingenuity in organizing camping baths, and they could sleep at the slightest opportunity. If there was no roof over their heads, then the soldiers slept with pleasure at the stern of the tank, where the heat of the engine reached, tankers

6 The letter is taken from the website: http://www.krskstate.ru/pobeda/pisma. Date of access: 11.12.2010.

page 132 of 262

fit right in the fighting compartment, etc. However, how often their sleep was interrupted by sudden combat anxiety, the need to attack again or repel the attack of the enemy. The more precious were the moments of rest stolen from war and death. In this sense, the song to the words of Alexei Fatyanov "Nightingales" incredibly accurately conveys the spirit of the war years. The singer asks the nightingales not to disturb the soldiers. We will not disturb them either, but simply remember with reverence and grateful memory those who, by their sacrificial feat, made it possible for subsequent generations to sleep peacefully.

Concluding this article, I would like to draw some conclusions. From the analyzed material it clearly follows that the rest and leisure of soldiers and officers of the Red Army during the Great Patriotic War, like their entire daily life during this period, existed and developed along several intersecting lines:

1) organized and amateur forms;

2) collective and individual;

3) ideal and utilitarian components.

Recreation and leisure (like the entire daily life of the Red Army), developing in the context of the events of the war, had not only an endogenous (means of relaxation), but also an exogenous meaning - as one of the factors that ensured the final victory of the USSR in the war.

Among the attendant factors that determined the variety of forms of military recreation and leisure were one or another period of the war, the situation on the fronts in general and in a given sector, in particular, the nature of military operations (offensive, defense or retreat), the personal human qualities of soldiers, officers and political workers who determined the quality of their relationship, including during leisure.

If we ignore the enumeration of specific facts and options for their local interpretation, moving to a more general level of analysis, then we can conclude that front-line recreation with all its components is not just an attempt to distract from blood and death in their prohibitive concentration, but also something more - an unconscious denial of war as an arpvp pathological condition and an equally unconscious desire to reproduce, restore normal, that is, peaceful life, at least for a short time.

Ultimately, using the example of military recreation and leisure, one can once again be convinced of the eventful and semantic inexhaustibility, versatility and ambiguity of such a global historical phenomenon as the Great Patriotic War, and, consequently, the need for further development historical research in her area.

Literature

1. Bessonov E. I. To Berlin. 3800 kilometers on the armor of tanks. M., 2005.

2. Gorsky S. A. Notes of the gunner SU-76. Liberators of Poland. M., 2010.

3. Demidov P. A. In the service of the god of war. There is a black cross in the scope. M., 2007.

4. Drabkin A. Get up, the country is huge. / series "I remember". M., 2010.

5. Drabkin A. And yet we won / series "I remember". M., 2010.

6. Drabkin A. Holy war / series "I remember". M., 2010.

7. Drabkin A. I fought on the T-34. M., 2009.

8. Drabkin A. I fought with the Panzerwaffe: double salary - triple death. M., 2007.

9. Drabkin A. I went to the front line: revelations of military intelligence officers. M., 2010.

10. Inozemtsev N. N. Front-line diary. M., 2005.

11. Loza D. F. Tanker on a "foreign car". M., 2007.

12. Mikheenkov S. E. Not reported in the reports. Life and death of a soldier of the Great Patriotic War. M., 2009.

13. Mikheenkov S. E. Platoon, prepare for the attack! .. Lieutenants of the Great Patriotic War. M., 2010.

14. Novokhatsky I. M. Memoirs of the battery commander. Divisional artillery during the Great Patriotic War. M., 2007.

15. Pershanin V. Penal boxes, scouts, infantry. "Trench Truth" of the Great Patriotic War. M., 2010.

16. Priklonsky E. E. Diary of a self-propelled gunner. The combat path of the ISU-152 driver. 1942 - 1945. M., 2008.

17. Shimkevich V. The fate of the Moscow militia. M., 2008.

FROM THE EXPERIENCE OF SOLVING SOME SOCIAL AND HOUSEHOLD PROBLEMS

IN THE RURAL 70-80s (BY THE EXAMPLE OF THE MOSCOW REGION)

Baranov Alexander Vasilyevich, Candidate of Historical Sciences, Professor of the Department of History and Political Science, [email protected]

FGBOU VPO "Russian State University tourism and service,

Moscow

The article is devoted to the implementation of complex measures for the socio-economic transformation of rural settlements. It analyzes the work of party, Soviet and economic leaders of the Moscow region on the renewal and reconstruction of villages and villages in order to create the most favorable conditions for living, recreation after labor day and comprehensive development of rural workers and their children.

The article is devoted to the implementation of complex measures for socio-economic transformation of rural settlements. It analyzes the work of the party, of governmental and economical leaders of the Moscow region in the aspect of renewal and reconstruction of villages in order to create the most favorable conditions for living, relax after hard day's work and the comprehensive development of rural workers and their children.

Key words: villagers, renewal, services, cooperation.

By its nature, the German nation is very different from all others. They consider themselves highly educated people for whom order and system are above all else. As for the German fascists, led by the Fuhrer Hitler, who wanted to take over the whole world, including Soviet Union, it is worth saying that they revered only their nation and considered it the best of all the rest. During the Great Patriotic War, the Nazis, in addition to burning cities and destroying Soviet soldiers, found time to entertain themselves, but not always in humane ways.

The Great Patriotic War suffered many events that left their indelible mark on the history of mankind. Active hostilities took place constantly, only the places of deployment and the military changed. In addition to the defeats, bombings and fights between the soldiers of the Red Army and the fascist invaders, at the moments when the explosions subsided, the soldiers had the opportunity to rest, replenish their strength, eat and have fun. And in such a difficult time for everyone, the soldiers who constantly walked next to death saw how their colleagues and just friends were killed before their eyes, they knew how to relax, abstract, sing war songs, write poems about war and just laugh at interesting stories.

But not all entertainment was harmless, because everyone has a different understanding of the fun. For example, Germans throughout the Second World War, they showed themselves to be brutal killers, sparing no one in their path. According to many historical facts and the testimony of older people who themselves witnessed that terrible period of time, it can be stated that all the actions of the Nazis were not so forced, many actions were carried out from their personal initiative. Killing and bullying many people became a kind of fun and game. The Nazis felt their power over other people, and in order to assert themselves, they committed all the most atrocious crimes that were not punished in any way.

It is known that in the occupied territories, enemy troops took civilians hostage and covered themselves with their bodies, and then executed them. People were killed in gas chambers and burned in crematoria, which at that time worked without interruption. Punishers spared no one. The executioners shot, hung and burned alive small children, women, the elderly and enjoyed it. How this is possible is inexplicable to this day and it is not known whether all these brutal historical mysteries will ever be solved. One of the ways the German fascists entertained was the rape of women and little girls. And often this was done collectively and very cruelly.

Photos from the Great Patriotic War show that the Germans were engaged in hunting, and were very proud of their trophies. Probably, hunting and fishing was only entertainment for the Nazis, as they were fed an order of magnitude better than Soviet soldiers. The Nazis were especially fond of hunting large game, wild boars, bears and deer. Germans they also liked to drink well, dance and sing. Since they are an extraordinary people, they came up with appropriate activities, which is clearly shown in many pictures. The German fascists both undressed and took away wheelbarrows and carriages from civilians, and posed with them. Also Nazis they loved to pose with ammunition, which destroyed the glorious Soviet people.

However, in addition to all the worst, there is an opinion that not all German invaders were cruel and merciless. Many testimonies have been documented, which say that the Germans even helped some families and the elderly, who lived during the occupation of Soviet territories.

Whatever it was, good relationship to the Nazis will never be. There is no forgiveness for such bloody actions.

In addition to hostilities and the constant proximity of death, there is always another side to the war - the everyday life of army life. A man at the front not only fought, but was also preoccupied with an endless number of things that he needed to remember.

Without a good organization of the life of servicemen in a combat situation, it is impossible to count on the successful completion of the task. The morale of the fighters, as you know, was greatly influenced by the organization of life. Without this, a serviceman in the course of hostilities cannot restore the spent moral and physical strength. What kind of recuperation can a soldier expect if, for example, instead of healthy sleep during rest, he scratches fiercely to get rid of itching. We tried to collect interesting photos and facts of front-line life and compare the conditions in which Soviet and German soldiers fought.

Soviet dugout, 1942.

German soldiers waiting, Central Front, 1942-1943.

Soviet mortars in a trench.

German soldiers in a peasant's hut, Central Front, 1943.

cultural service Soviet troops: front concert. 1944

German soldiers celebrating Christmas, Central Front, 1942.

The soldiers of Senior Lieutenant Kalinin dress after the bath. 1942

German soldiers at dinner.

Soviet soldiers at work in a field repair workshop. 1943

German soldiers clean their shoes and sew up clothes.

First Ukrainian front. General view of the regimental laundry in the forest west of Lvov. 1943

German soldiers at rest.

Western front. Haircut and shaving of Soviet soldiers in the front-line barbershop. August 1943

Haircut and shaving of the soldiers of the German army.

North Caucasian front. Girls-fighters in leisure hours. 1943

German soldiers in their free time at rest.

Much in the life of a soldier, and even at the front, depended on uniforms. From the memoirs of a fighter of the Leningrad Front of the 1025th separate mortar company Ivan Melnikov: “We were given pants, a shirt, a cloth tunic, a padded jacket and wadded pants, felt boots, a hat with earflaps, mittens. In such uniforms it was possible to fight in forty-degree frosts. Germans from us were dressed extremely lightly. They were dressed in greatcoats and caps, boots. In especially severe frosts, they wrapped themselves in woolen scarves, wrapped their legs in rags, newspapers, just to save themselves from frostbite. So it was at the beginning of the war near Moscow and later - near Stalingrad. The Germans never got used to the Russian climate."

Western front. Soviet soldiers at leisure time on the front line. 1942

Correspondence (by correspondence) marriage of a German soldier. The ceremony is conducted by the company commander, 1943.

Operation in a Soviet field hospital, 1943.

German field hospital, 1942.

One of the main issues of military life was the supply of the army and military rations. It is clear that you won’t get much hungry. The daily rate of food distribution of the ground forces of the Wehrmacht per day as of 1939:

Bread................................................. ...................... 750 grams
Cereals (semolina, rice) .............................. 8.6 grams
Pasta................................................. .............. 2.86 grams
Meat (beef, veal, pork) .............. 118.6 grams
Sausage................................................. ................. 42.56 grams
Lard bacon .............................................................. ............... 17.15 grams
Animal and vegetable fats ............................... 28.56 grams
Cow butter .................................................................. ....... 21.43 grams
Margarine................................................. .............. 14.29 grams
Sugar................................................. .................... 21.43 grams
Ground coffee................................................ ......... 15.72 grams
Tea................................................. ....................... 4 grams per week
Cocoa powder ............................................... ......... 20 grams (per week)
Potato................................................. ............. 1500 grams
-or beans (beans) .............................................. 365 grams
Vegetables (celery, peas, carrots, kohlrabi) ........ 142.86 grams
or canned vegetables .......................... 21.43 grams
Apples................................................. ................... 1 piece per week
Pickles................................................ ..... 1 piece per week
Milk................................................. ................. 20 grams per week
Cheese................................................. ....................... 21.57 grams
Eggs................................................. ...................... 3 pieces per week
Canned fish (sardines in oil) .............................. 1 can per week

German soldiers at rest.

The daily ration was given German soldiers once a day, all at once, usually in the evening, after dark, when it becomes possible to send food carriers to the near rear to the field kitchen. The place of eating and the distribution of food for food during the day, the soldier determined independently.

During the Great Patriotic War in fascist troops who fought on Eastern Front, the norms for the issuance of food, the supply of uniforms and footwear, and the consumption of ammunition were revised. Their reduction and reduction played a certain positive role in the victory of the Soviet people in the war.

German soldiers during a meal.

Large containers equipped with shoulder straps were used to deliver food from the field kitchen to the fascist front line. They were of two types: with a large round screw cap and with a hinged cap, measuring over the entire cross section of the container. The first type was intended for the transport of drinks (coffee, compotes, rum, schnapps, etc.), the second - for dishes such as soup, porridge, goulash.

The daily norm for the issuance of food to the Red Army and the commanding staff of the combat units of the active army of the Soviet Union as of 1941:

Bread: October-March......................900 grams
April-September..............................800 grams
Wheat flour, 2nd grade............. 20 grams
Groats different ............................... 140 grams
Macaroni.................................30 grams
Meat.........................................150 grams
Fish............................................100 grams
Combined fat and lard ...................... 30 grams
Vegetable oil......................20 grams
Sugar ................................................35 grams
Tea............................................1 gram
Salt .................................................30 grams
Vegetables:
- potatoes.................................500 grams
- cabbage......................................170 grams
- carrots ........................................45 grams
- beets .......................................... 40 grams
- onion .................................. 30 grams
- greens ...................................... 35 grams
Makhorka ........................................20 grams
Matches..............................3 boxes per month
Soap.................................200 grams per month

June 1942. Sending freshly baked bread to the front line

It is worth noting that the food norms did not always reach the fighters in full - there was simply not enough food. Then the foremen of the units gave out instead of the established 900 grams of bread, only 850, or even less. Such conditions encourage the command of the unit to use the help of the local population. And in difficult conditions of battles, unit commanders often did not have the opportunity to pay due attention to the catering unit. Duty officers were not appointed, and elementary sanitary conditions were not observed.

Field kitchen of Soviet soldiers.

Soviet soldiers during a meal.

When writing the article, materials were used

This post will tell us about what Soviet soldiers had to fight in during the Great Patriotic War. Despite the fact that at that time military personnel often wore trophy clothes, no one canceled the generally accepted equipment, and read below about what it included.

Steel helmet SSH-40. This helmet is a modernization of the SSH-39 helmet, accepted for supply to the Red Army in June 1939. In the design of the SSH-39, the shortcomings of the previous SSH-36 were eliminated, however, the operation of the SSH-39 during the Soviet-Finnish war of 1939-1940. revealed a significant drawback - it was impossible to put on a winter hat under it, and a regular woolen balaclava did not save from severe frosts. Therefore, soldiers often broke out the SSH-39 under-the-shoulder device and wore a helmet over a hat without it.
As a result, in the new SSH-40 helmet, the under-shoulder device was significantly different from the SSH-39, although the shape of the dome remained unchanged. Visually, the SSH-40 can be distinguished by six rivets around the circumference in the lower part of the helmet dome, while the SSH-39 has three rivets, and they are located at the top. The SSH-40 used a three-petal under-body device, to which shock absorber bags stuffed with technical cotton were sewn on the reverse side. The petals were pulled together with a cord, which made it possible to adjust the depth of the helmet on the head.
The production of the SSH-40 began to be deployed at the beginning of 1941 in Lysva in the Urals, and a little later in Stalingrad at the Krasny Oktyabr plant, but by June 22 the troops had only a small number of these helmets. By the autumn of 1942, helmets of this type were made only in Lysva. Gradually SSH-40 became the main type of helmet of the Red Army. It was produced in large quantities after the war, and was withdrawn from service relatively recently.

The pot is round. A bowler hat of a similar round shape was used in the army Russian Empire, made of copper, brass, tin plate, and later aluminum. In 1927, in Leningrad, at the Krasny Vyborzhets plant, mass production of round stamped aluminum bowlers for the Red Army was launched, but in 1936 they were replaced by a new flat bowler hat.
With the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, in the fall of 1941, the manufacture of round bowlers was again established in Lysva in the Urals, but from steel instead of scarce aluminum. The return to the round shape was also understandable - such a bowler hat was easier to manufacture. The Lysvensky plant did a great job, which made it possible to significantly reduce the cost of production. By 1945, the total production of round army bowlers amounted to more than 20 million pieces - they became the most massive in the Red Army. Production continued after the war.

Duffel bag. This item of equipment, nicknamed "sidor" by the soldiers, was a simple bag with a strap and a rope neck tie. He first appeared in tsarist army in 1869 and without significant changes he got into the Red Army. In 1930, a new standard was adopted that determined the look of the duffel bag - in accordance with it, it was now called the "Turkestan type duffel bag", or the duffel bag of the 1930 model.
The duffel bag had only one compartment, the top of which could be pulled with a rope. A shoulder strap was sewn to the bottom of the bag, on which two jumpers were put on, intended for fastening on the chest. On the other side of the shoulder strap, three rope loops were sewn to adjust the length. A wooden toggle was sewn to the corner of the bag, for which the loop of the shoulder strap clung. The shoulder strap was folded into a "cow" knot, into the center of which the neck of the bag was threaded, after which the knot was tightened. In this form, the bag was put on and carried behind the back of the fighter.
In 1941, there was a change in the appearance of the duffel bag of the 1930 model: it became slightly smaller, the shoulder strap was narrower and received lining inside on the shoulders, which required its stitching. In 1942, a new simplification followed - the lining in the shoulder strap was abandoned, but the strap itself was made wider. In this form, the duffel bag was produced until the end of the 40s. Taking into account the ease of manufacture, the duffel bag became the main means for carrying the personal belongings of the Red Army soldiers during the Great Patriotic War.

Gas mask bag model 1939. By 1945, no one removed the gas mask from the supply of Red Army soldiers. However, four years of the war passed without chemical attacks, and the soldiers tried to get rid of the "unnecessary" piece of equipment by handing it over to the wagon train. Often, despite the constant control of the command, gas masks were simply thrown away, and personal belongings were carried in gas mask bags.
During the war, soldiers of even one unit could have different bags and gas masks different types. The photo shows a gas mask bag of the 1939 model, issued in December 1941. The bag, made of tent fabric, closed with a button. It was much easier to make than the 1936 bag.

Small infantry shovel. During the war, the MPL-50 small infantry shovel underwent a number of changes aimed at simplifying production. At first, the overall design of the tray and shovel remained unchanged, but the fastening of the lining with the rear cord began to be made by electric spot welding instead of rivets, a little later they abandoned the crimp ring, continuing to fasten the handle between the cords with rivets.
In 1943, an even more simplified version of the MPL-50 appeared: the shovel became one-piece stamped. It abandoned the lining with the rear cord, and the shape of the upper part of the front cord became even (before it was triangular). Moreover, now the front strand began to twist, forming a tube, fastened with a rivet or welding. The handle was inserted into this tube, tightly hammered until wedging with a shovel tray, after which it was fixed with a screw. The photo shows a shovel of intermediate series - with strands, without a ferrule, with fixing the lining by spot welding.

Pomegranate bag. Each infantryman carried hand grenades, which were regularly carried in a special bag on the waist belt. The bag was located on the left rear, after the cartridge bag and in front of the grocery bag. It was a quadrangular fabric bag with three compartments. Grenades were placed in two large ones, and detonators for them were placed in the third, small one. The grenades were brought into combat position immediately before use. The material of the bag could be tarpaulin, canvas or tent fabric. The bag was closed with a button or wooden toggle.
Two old grenades of the 1914/30 model or two RGD-33 (pictured) were placed in the bag, which were stacked with the handles up. The detonators lay in paper or rags. Also, four F-1 "lemons" could fit in pairs in a bag, and they were located in a peculiar way: on each grenade, the ignition nest was closed with a special screw plug made of wood or Bakelite, while one grenade was placed with the cork down, and the second up. With the adoption of new types of grenades during the war by the Red Army, putting them in a bag was similar to the F-1 grenades. Without significant changes, the grenade bag served from 1941 to 1945.

Soldier's trousers of the 1935 model. Accepted for supply to the Red Army by the same order as the tunic of 1935, bloomers remained unchanged throughout the Great Patriotic War. They were high-waisted breeches, well-fitting at the waist, loose at the top and tightly fitting the calves.
Drawstrings were sewn on the bottom of the trousers. There were two deep pockets on the sides of the trousers, and another pocket with a flap fastened with a button was located in the back. At the belt, next to the codpiece, was a small pocket for a death medallion. Pentagonal reinforcement pads were sewn on the knees. Loops for a trouser belt were provided on the belt, although the possibility of adjusting the volume was also provided with the help of a strap with a buckle in the back. Bloomers were made from a special double "harem" diagonal and were quite durable.

Soldier's gymnast, model 1943. was introduced by order People's Commissar Defense of the USSR dated January 15, 1943 instead of the gymnast of the 1935 model. The main differences were in a soft standing collar instead of a turn-down. The collar was fastened with two small uniform buttons. The front placket was open and fastened with three buttons through through loops.
Attached shoulder straps were placed on the shoulders, for which belt loops were sewn. The soldier's tunic had no pockets in wartime, they were introduced later. Pentagonal field epaulettes were worn on the shoulders in combat conditions. The infantry's epaulette field was green, the piping along the edge of the epaulette was crimson. Lychki Jr. commanders sewn at the top of the shoulder strap.

Belt. Due to the fact that leather was expensive to process and often required for the manufacture of more durable and responsible items of equipment, by the end of the war, a braid waist belt reinforced with leather or split leather elements became more common. This type of belt appeared before 1941 and was used until the end of the war.​
Many leather waist belts, differing in detail, came from Lend-Lease allies. The American belt shown in the photo, 45 mm wide, had a single-pronged buckle, like the Soviet counterparts, but it was not made of wire that was round in cross section, but was cast or stamped, with clear corners.
The Red Army soldiers also used captured German belts, in which, because of the pattern with an eagle and a swastika, they had to modify the buckle. Most often, these attributes were simply ground off, but if there was free time, the silhouette of a five-pointed star cut through the buckle. The photo shows another version of the alteration: a hole was punched in the center of the buckle, into which a star from a Red Army cap or cap was inserted.

Scout knife NR-40. The reconnaissance knife of the 1940 model was adopted by the Red Army following the results of the Soviet-Finnish war of 1939-1940, when there was a need for a simple and convenient army combat knife.
Soon, the production of these knives was launched by the Trud artel in the village of Vacha (Gorky Region) and at the Zlatoust Tool Plant in the Urals. Later, HP-40s were also manufactured at other enterprises, including besieged Leningrad. Despite a single drawing, HP-40s from different manufacturers differ in details.​
At the initial stage of the Great Patriotic War, only scouts were armed with HP-40 knives. For the infantry, they were not authorized weapons, but the closer to 1945, the more and more knives can be seen in photographs of ordinary submachine gunners. Production of the HP-40 continued after the war, both in the USSR and in the countries participating in the Warsaw Pact.

Glass flask. Glass flasks were widely used in many armies of the world. Russian was no exception. imperial army, from which this type of flask was inherited by the Red Army. Despite the fact that tin or aluminum canteens produced in parallel were more practical, cheap glass containers were good for the mass draft army.​
In the Red Army, they tried to replace glass flasks with aluminum ones, but they did not forget about glass either - on December 26, 1931, another standard was approved for the manufacture of such flasks with a nominal volume of 0.75 and 1.0 liters. With the beginning of the war, glass flasks became the main ones - the shortage of aluminum and the blockade of Leningrad, where most aluminum flasks were produced, affected.
The flask was closed with a rubber or wooden stopper with a twine tied around the neck. Several types of cases were used for carrying, and almost all of them provided for wearing a flask on a belt over the shoulder. Structurally, such a cover was a simple bag made of fabric with rope ties at the neck. There were options for covers with soft inserts to protect the flask during impacts - these were used in the Airborne Forces. A glass flask could also be carried in a belt case, adopted for aluminum flasks.

Bag for box magazines. With the advent of box magazines for the Shpagin submachine gun and with the development of the Sudayev submachine gun with similar magazines, a need arose for a bag to carry them. A bag for magazines of a German submachine gun was used as a prototype.
The bag contained three stores, each of which was designed for 35 rounds. Each PPS-43 was supposed to have two such bags, but wartime photographs show that submachine gunners often wore only one. This was due to a certain shortage of stores - in combat conditions they were consumables and were easily lost.
A bag was sewn from canvas or tarpaulin and, unlike the German one, was greatly simplified. The valve was fastened with pegs or wooden toggles, there were options with buttons. On the back of the bag were sewn loops for threading a waist belt. Bags were worn on a belt in front, which provided quick access to equipped stores and stacking empty ones back. Laying stores up or down the neck was not regulated.

Yuft boots. Initially, the boots were the only footwear of the Russian soldier: boots with windings were accepted for supply only at the beginning of 1915, when the army increased dramatically in numbers, and the boots were no longer enough. Soldier's boots were made from yuft and in the Red Army were supplied to all branches of the military.
In the mid-30s, tarpaulin was invented in the USSR - a material with a fabric base, on which artificial sodium butadiene rubber was applied with an imitation of leather texture. With the beginning of the war, the problem of supplying the mobilized army with shoes became acute, and the “damn skin” came in handy - the boots of the Red Army soldier became tarpaulin.
By 1945 a typical Soviet infantryman he was shod precisely in kirzachi or boots with windings, but experienced soldiers sought to get leather boots for themselves. The photo on the infantryman shows yuft boots, with leather soles and leather heels.