By Matyas Goupil
Introduction
The Second World War was apocalyptic for the USSR. 1,700 towns and 70,000 villages burned down; 32,000 factories destroyed; 27 million deaths, two thirds of whom were children. The war proved to be an existential conflict in which people fought for their very right to live against an ideology determined to either eradicate or enslave them.
Nazism deemed the Soviet population “‘unworthy’ lives threatening the Germanic people.” Hitler, therefore, abolished any notions of non-combatants on the Eastern front, seeking to legitimise his indiscriminate killing of civilians and soldiers alike. Soviet citizens could not afford to play passive roles in the war; their lives depended on it. Civilians formed militias and partisan organisations to fight guerilla conflicts against the German invaders, often regardless of age or gender. Child soldiers were not uncommon.
The rapid early mobilisation of Soviet youths
Stalin’s zero-sum view of the world fostered an early war philosophy within the USSR. Civilians expected to fight a total war against capitalist powers as a continuation of the Revolution. Massive organisations like the Osoaviakhim trained civilians and children in many tactical military branches from aviation to chemical defence since 1927. As the Germans pushed deeper into Soviet territory, therefore, they often encountered a socialist civilian population eager and able to fight back.
Extraordinary Stalinist measures swept across the increasingly rapid militarisation of the USSR when Germany invaded in June 1941. Within half a year, the Red Army doubled in size to 9.5 million soldiers. Alongside conventional conscription, Stalin established his People’s Militia in 1941, an organisation through which civilians were rapidly funnelled to the front lines. A significant number of Militia recruits were below the draft age.
The militarisation of children during the war entrenched itself at the local level of the USSR. Youth leaders would proclaim it to be the patriotic duty of children to join the army, People’s Militia, or partisan groups. The Komsomol, the Soviet youth organisation, enlisted almost 60,000 members to the Militia or the Red Army proper within the first week of the war.
Organising partisans became the Komsomol’s central role throughout WWII. With military-aged people conscripted in the Red Army, youths became paramount to partisanship as they proved more capable in conducting partisan warfare than their elderly counterparts.
Young partisans
A wealth of stories, memoirs, and reports highlight the significant role of young Soviet partisans in WWII. Accounts detail their ideological impact, as young partisans were often tasked with spreading propaganda in occupied territories. The thought of Soviet power still alive and fighting bolstered the morale of civilians and deterred potential cooperation with the occupiers. Providing an alternative to the Nazi narrative prevented Soviet resistance from being extinguished.
In occupied towns, local youths created underground insurgencies. These included the Young Guard of Krasnodon, Ukraine, whose armed resistance to the Germans saw the executions of occupiers and disruptions of German attempts to send Ukrainians to concentration camps. The underground insurgencies further spread Soviet and anti-German propaganda, keeping the flame of partisanship alive and healthy.
An untold number of children joined partisan movements over the course of the war. However, Komsomol records show that from November 1941 – April 1943, 520,000 youths enlisted in partisan movements, 43% of which were girls. These underaged warriors disrupted the German advancement, damaged German ambitions – including the Holocaust – and kept morale from ceasing on the homefront. However, the children of the USSR were not spared from frontline combat either.
Youth in the Red Army
The combattant role of the Soviet youth was not limited to the partisans. While Soviet authorities never intended for children to fight in the Red Army, a combination of effective propaganda, disorganisation, and lack of choice saw a significant number of children don the Red Army uniform.
After the German defeats at Stalingrad and the Kurst salient in 1943, Wehmarcht detachments began retreating westward: the turning point of the war. The retreating Germans sought to exasperate their genocide given their now limited time in the region. Einsatzgruppen and SS brigades liquidated villages at an accelerated rate, often leaving children orphaned with few alternatives to joining the advancing Red Army. As the war progressed, joining the Red Army became synonymous to survival for homeless, familyless children.
These youths often served as scouts, cleaners, cooks, or other non-combat roles on the front lines. Nonetheless, the significance of their service cannot be understated. Children saw combat in numerous battles throughout the Soviet march to Berlin, with interview reports detailing their involvement. Despite the number of children serving in the Red Army being unknown, they remain today as the last survivors of WWII in the former Soviet territories.
The children’s legacies
Young partisans often became national heroes to the USSR, mythologised for their valiant bravery in spite of their age. These include 18-year-old Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, who was tasked with burning down a village near Moscow used as a German base of operations. Upon being captured, she was tortured and publicly executed while rallying partisan support until her dying breath: “cheer up! Smite the Germans! Burn them! […] I shall be avenged. Goodbye, comrades.”
Nobel Prize-winning Belarusian journalist Svetlana Alexievich interviewed 100 people who were children during WWII for Last Witnesses: Unchildlike Stories. In it, she recounts stories including that of Vasily Sigalev-Kniazev, a six-year-old boy who sought to join the Red Army, eventually fighting in the Battles of Königsberg and Berlin.
Some children who survived the war wrote memoirs about their experiences with partisans or the Red Army. These include Aleksandr Adamovich, who, as a 15-year-old partisan, witnessed the accelerated genocide 1943’s Byelarussia. His semi-autobiographical Khatyn was adapted to the acclaimed film Come and See. He further authored a collection of memoirs from over 300 children who shared similar experiences, publishing it under the title I Am From the Fiery Village.
Hitler’s defeat was hard-fought. The young partisans and soldiers serve as a reminder of the monumental extent of Soviet sociocultural mobilisation during the war. A mobilisation that, according to historian Richard Overy, the world has never seen before or since.
The role of children in WWII highlights the totality of the Soviet war experience. Civilians – women, children, the elderly – were not spared from the horrors of combat. When facing an enemy incessantly determined to exterminate their entire peoples, they were left with little choice but to fight and win, or die in the attempt.
Matyas Goupil is a Hungarian and French BA International Studies student in Leiden University, the Netherlands. He specialises in Russia and Eurasia studies, and speaks six languages including Russian.
European Studies Review 