May 09, 2016

Not to Be Forgotten


Not to Be Forgotten

[This essay was delivered on Vermont Public Radio on May 10, 2010. To hear it, visit here.]

For 45 years, the Cold War made it politically incorrect to recognize Soviet sacrifices and victories in defeating Hitler in World War II. Yet the Cold War has now been over for 20 years, so it seems a good time to unequivocally acknowledge the primary contribution of the Soviets in the winning of that war.

The Soviet regime had a very cavalier attitude toward statistics. If something didn’t compute, it was hidden. And even if something wasn’t hidden, it probably still didn’t add up.

So it was with Soviet statistics on World War II. While the Soviet leadership commonly pronounced that 20 million citizens died in what they called The Great Patriotic War, we now know that this astonishing statistic was a vast and purposeful understatement.

In 1941, the population of the Soviet Union was nearly 197 million. In 1946, after the war was over, it was just over 170 million – reduced by a shocking 13%.

Today, official military records indicate that more than eight and a half million Soviet soldiers died in combat. Yet more than twice that many civilians perished during the war.

According to historian Olga Verbitskaya, best estimates are that roughly 18 million Soviet civilians died during WWII, including eight and a half million from famine, bombings, relocations and occupation, more than 2 million from forced labor in Germany, and nearly seven and a half million in German concentration camps, jails and ghettos.

Further, Verbitskaya notes, we should not forget to calculate “indirect losses,” meaning those who died prematurely after the war was over, due to poor living and medical conditions, injuries sustained during the war, and declining birth rates, which fell 30-50% versus the pre-war era. In all, it is estimated that nearly 50 million Soviets (one quarter of the pre-war population) had their lives cut short by what some have been so bold to call “The Good War.”

Yet in spite of these terrible losses - caused primarily by the Nazis, but also by strategic errors and the genocidal policies of Stalin and his cohorts - there is also the reality of victory.

The facts are unequivocal: 80-90% of all German and Axis forces killed in Europe during World War II died on the Russian front. It was the largest theater of warfare in history and, as historian Chris Bellamy wrote, the “single most decisive component of World War II.”

It is therefore my hope that, as we observe the 65th anniversary of the end of war in Europe, we will also fully acknowledge the 26 million Soviets who laid down their lives defending their homeland – and by extension - all of us.

Such recognition would not diminish the sacrifices and accomplishments of American soldiers or those of any other nation. But it might well strengthen our relations with Russia, at a time when our two countries are once again allied in a worldwide war against terror and evil.

You Might Also Like

WWII in Russian Cultural Memory
  • June 22, 2016

WWII in Russian Cultural Memory

June 22nd, as any student of Soviet history knows, is the day remembered in the official histories as the beginning of the Great Patriotic War. Recent TV productions have sought to keep the state sanctioned view of the war alive in popular memory.
Like this post? Get a weekly email digest + member-only deals

Some of Our Books

Fish: A History of One Migration

Fish: A History of One Migration

This mesmerizing novel from one of Russia’s most important modern authors traces the life journey of a selfless Russian everywoman. In the wake of the Soviet breakup, inexorable forces drag Vera across the breadth of the Russian empire. Facing a relentless onslaught of human and social trials, she swims against the current of life, countering adversity and pain with compassion and hope, in many ways personifying Mother Russia’s torment and resilience amid the Soviet disintegration.
93 Untranslatable Russian Words

93 Untranslatable Russian Words

Every language has concepts, ideas, words and idioms that are nearly impossible to translate into another language. This book looks at nearly 100 such Russian words and offers paths to their understanding and translation by way of examples from literature and everyday life. Difficult to translate words and concepts are introduced with dictionary definitions, then elucidated with citations from literature, speech and prose, helping the student of Russian comprehend the word/concept in context.
How Russia Got That Way

How Russia Got That Way

A fast-paced crash course in Russian history, from Norsemen to Navalny, that explores the ways the Kremlin uses history to achieve its ends.
Maria's War: A Soldier's Autobiography

Maria's War: A Soldier's Autobiography

This astonishingly gripping autobiography by the founder of the Russian Women’s Death Battallion in World War I is an eye-opening documentary of life before, during and after the Bolshevik Revolution.
The Little Golden Calf

The Little Golden Calf

Our edition of The Little Golden Calf, one of the greatest Russian satires ever, is the first new translation of this classic novel in nearly fifty years. It is also the first unabridged, uncensored English translation ever, and is 100% true to the original 1931 serial publication in the Russian journal 30 Dnei. Anne O. Fisher’s translation is copiously annotated, and includes an introduction by Alexandra Ilf, the daughter of one of the book’s two co-authors.
Davai! The Russians and Their Vodka

Davai! The Russians and Their Vodka

In this comprehensive, quixotic and addictive book, Edwin Trommelen explores all facets of the Russian obsession with vodka. Peering chiefly through the lenses of history and literature, Trommelen offers up an appropriately complex, rich and bittersweet portrait, based on great respect for Russian culture.
Marooned in Moscow

Marooned in Moscow

This gripping autobiography plays out against the backdrop of Russia's bloody Civil War, and was one of the first Western eyewitness accounts of life in post-revolutionary Russia. Marooned in Moscow provides a fascinating account of one woman's entry into war-torn Russia in early 1920, first-person impressions of many in the top Soviet leadership, and accounts of the author's increasingly dangerous work as a journalist and spy, to say nothing of her work on behalf of prisoners, her two arrests, and her eventual ten-month-long imprisonment, including in the infamous Lubyanka prison. It is a veritable encyclopedia of life in Russia in the early 1920s.
The Moscow Eccentric

The Moscow Eccentric

Advance reviewers are calling this new translation "a coup" and "a remarkable achievement." This rediscovered gem of a novel by one of Russia's finest writers explores some of the thorniest issues of the early twentieth century.

About Us

Russian Life is a publication of a 30-year-young, award-winning publishing house that creates a bimonthly magazine, books, maps, and other products for Russophiles the world over.

Latest Posts

Our Contacts

Russian Life
73 Main Street, Suite 402
Montpelier VT 05602

802-223-4955