In Leningrad alone, 700,000 people starved or froze to death as they resisted the siege of the city by the Germans. The government imposed a rationing system because of shortages of food and clothing. Workers involved in war industries got higher rations than others. Everybody, including older people and teenagers, could be ordered to work for the war effort. It is estimated that about 17 million Soviet civilians died in the war, less than half from enemy action, and the rest from cold, hunger or the strain of the war.
EVIDENCE
Life in Soviet Russia during World War IIAnalysing Sources LSource 1
What do these sources tell you about the life of ordinary people in the Soviet Union during World War II? Explain your answer.
Russian peasants leaving their village ahead of German army
Who are the experts on life in a Communist country?
LSource 2 I watched my mother and father die. I knew perfectly well that they were starving. But I wanted their bread more than I wanted them to stay alive. And they knew that. That’s what I remember about the blockade: that feeling that you wanted your parents to die because you wanted their bread. (A survivor of the siege of Leningrad)
Go onto YouTube and look up ‘Stalin and the Modernisation of Russia’.
LSource 3 Estimated Total USSR Deaths in World War II
