Political impacts of Great War

• Stalin dissapears for 5 days after operation Barbarossa - sort of depressed - 27th June - not seen till 3rd of July publically
• Polit Beauraeu members set up State Committee for Defence for Stalin

  • Visit him and say they need him
  • Stalin becomes head of GKO ( War Cabinet ) - Power over everything in country
  • Becomes binding
  • Centralised power at its peak but relied on localities to get on board - war is only won through soviet people’s determination
• Win war due to outproducing Germans in tanks, airforce - GKO accredited - 50% of Soviet GDP towards war
• Military Supreme Command - Stavka - charge of operations

  • Stalin becomes commander in chief on July 20th and Chairman of Stavka on august 20th to defer blame
  • Bodies are kept delaborately seperate with stalin heading both so he’s the go between - he made decisions alone everywhere
• Propoganda 


  Aimed to make Soviets self sacrificial and patriotic

  • Hard due to early military disasters
  • Victory is assured became slogan
  • Cult of personality grows - quasi religous - claimed staliln was savior - guiding light once military command - 7 speeches changed war forecast
  • emphasis placed on Foriegn invaders
  • Generallisimo - top military leader means Stalin is cemented after winning war - his word is gospel
• GKO 


  • Stalin - chairman - head + complete control
  • Molotov - Deputy chair - does excellent job + in charge of tanks
  • Malenkov - Aircraft’s
  • Beria - NKVD head - ammunition and armarment head
  • Voroshilov - representing armed forces
  • Vosnesenky - state planning - logistics within country
  • Mikoyan - food suppLies
  • Kaganovich - food supplies
• Military supreme command/ Stavka

  • set up day after invasion
  • in charge of land, sea and air operation
  • Stalin is ultimate commander in chief but waits till 20th July - controls entire army and navy
  • Stavka head on 8th august - political position
  • Delierately kept seperate from GKO so can scapegoat individuals and make him go between
• volga Germans 


  Many weren’t Nazi spies and had no connection to Germany at all

  • Over 600 thousand deported to Siberia - some happened to be wives and children of red army soldiers serving soviets
• Repression - Chechen Ingush

  Worked with nazis and began anti-soviet rebellion

  • spread further paranoia
  • 2 million ethnic minorities - tartars, caucus groups deported to stans and Siberia
  • moved far from Germany and 1/4 die in transit due to inhospitable arrangements
• Latvians and Estonians taken back from nazis and reannexed

  • most elites arrested and shot from fear of succumb to nazI Propoganda
• Role of NKVD - January 9th

  Stalin gives Beria free reign

  • Roles and responsibility increase - counter panic, monitoring party and people, identifying species and traitors in red army
  • Order 227 + 270 - no retreat or you're shot - prisoners of war were deserters
  • NKVD given permission to execute war prisoners on sight - refusing officers shot too
  • Soldiers guilty of cowardice sent to punishment brigades - specific missions - walk across mine fields to clear - 450 thousand sent
• blocking detachments 


  • groups of agents behind unreliable troops to shoot them if they retreat
  • 13500 shot in first few weeks during battle of Stalingrad
  • Abolished October 1942 by Zhukov as Stalins reliance on him increases - NKVD continue though
• Nazi occupation 


  5 million Soviets at any time in Nazi occupied Europe

  • Over the course of the year
  • Some forced to work in Nazi concentration camps or killed and some collabed with Germans
  • 150 thousand fought for nazis - perhaps coerced
  • 150 thousand traitors punished harshly - other 4.85 million treated same - half to gulag
  • Stalin said anyone in Nazi Europe was contaminated - us west coast 30 thousand russias and some committed suicide instead of forced derogation - 3 million sent o gulag - 1/5 went home but labelled fifth columnist and ostracised