Myths dissolve as Russians remember their Great Patriotic War

Ivan's war: The red army 1939-1945
by Catherine Merridale
Faber & Faber

Catherine Merridale specialises in unearthing buried memories. In Night of Stone, the focus was on the relatives of so-called "enemies of the people" in the Soviet Union, forbidden to mourn their loved ones. In Ivan's War, she collects the stories of men and women who fought in the Red Army during the "Great Patriotic War".

The stories are gleaned from letters and journals preserved in newly accessible archives, and from many hours of interviews with veterans. The result is a significant contribution to understanding what the war meant to Soviet soldiers.

The problem for the ordinary Ivan is that his memory was never entirely his own. At the time, his vision of what was happening was refracted through the distorting lens of Soviet propaganda, while until very recently official Russian recollection was a construct of the Brezhnev era.

"Brezhnev," writes Merridale, "saw the war myth as a way of rebuilding the nation's faltering sense of purpose."

This was the myth, celebrated in grandiose monuments, of the fearless heroes who saved Europe from the fascist menace. It is not as though there is no truth in this myth, but it is not the whole truth.

For the Red Army, the war fell into two distinct parts. The first 20 months after June 1941 were catastrophic. Troops were sent into battle with little training and sometimes no weapons. By February 1942, for every German killed, 20 Soviet soldiers had died.

After the victory at Stalingrad, morale and conditions improved. The troops, though better equipped, still faced great hardship and, like soldiers everywhere, relied on the solaces of alcohol and women.

For troops far from home, women were a commodity: "They regard women like gramophone records," one wrote. "You play it and play it and then throw it away."

As they began to pursue the enemy over the border, contact with capitalism was an eye-opener. Russian soldiers were indignant to discover living standards vastly superior to their own.

Those in charge of their minds turned this indignation and anger, much of which should have been directed at the failures of Stalin's system, on to the defeated Germans, with terrible consequences. Rape was widespread and systematic.

As usual, a kind of double-think was in operation. While official orders said the penalty for rape and looting was death on the spot - they implied the opposite. "Red Army soldier!" a poster declared. "You are now on German soil. The hour of revenge has struck!"

Afterwards, the shameful episode was wiped from official Soviet memory. None of Merridale's interviewees could remember these atrocities, let alone admit taking part.

Under Stalin's regime, writes Merridale, "it was as if people could build walls in their mind". Ivan's War shows such walls can be harder to dismantle than the one that split Berlin.