“…during the war over half a million women fought in the Soviet armed forces. However, rather than improving the status of women, this left them more vulnerable to mistreatment. It has come to light from recently opened Soviet records and the confessions of Red Army veterans that female soldiers were routinely sexually abused, especially by… Read More
“Stalin’s treatment of returning Soviet POWs In spite of his personal triumph, Stalin was, if anything, more paranoid at the end of the war than at the beginning. His suspicions of real or imagined enemies had grown, not weakened. The tragedy was that he was helped in this by the Western Allies. At the Yalta… Read More
“Over a quarter of the estimated 25 million fatalities suffered by the Soviet Union during the war were the result of starvation. A fearful example of what was endured is evident in the statistics relating to the siege of Leningrad. The siege lasted 900 days from September 1941 to January 1944.A million people, one in… Read More
“All adults not involved in essential war work were conscripted into the armed forces. By 1944 there were over two million women serving in the Red Army. In a small touch of chivalry amidst the carnage and suffering, the government made the soap ration for female soldiers 100 grams more than for the men. Special… Read More
“How much the Soviet people suffered can be expressed very simply. At the end of 1941, after only six months of war, the following losses had been suffered: half the Soviet population was under German occupation a third of the nation’s industrial plant was in German hands iron and steel production had dropped by 60… Read More
“[During the Battle of Stalingrad] The Soviet forces themselves had suffered terribly. In the battle which occupied the winter months of 1942-43, over a million Soviet troops were killed. The life expectancy of a soldier at the front was 24 hours. Yet Stalingrad was singly the most important conflict of the war in Europe.” (Lynch,… Read More
“It was a war of attrition. From near-defeat in 1941 the Soviet Union drew the German forces deeper and deeper into Russia until they were overstretched and vulnerable. The Soviet armies then counter-attacked, pushing the enemy back into Germany until Berlin itself fell in May 1945. Soviet casualties were prodigious. In the worst years, 1941-42,… Read More
Boot Camp & Military Fitness Institute 