People's militia in the USSR in 1941: difficulties of the formation process. Based on archival documents of party bodies of the Rostov region

The article, based on the materials of the Center for Documentation of Contemporary History of the Rostov Region (CDNIRO), examines one of the aspects of the volunteer movement during the Great Patriotic War - the process of formation of the people's militia on the Don. Using a number of previously unpublished documents, the authors focus on issues that are relevant due to the lack of study in the scientific literature, such as difficulties and shortcomings in the process of creating the Don militia. In July 1941 in Rostov region it was planned to create militia formations in rural areas and a number of cities. It has been established that the Rostov Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, which was responsible for the creation and military training of the militia, constantly monitored this process. In September 1941 the regional committee checked the condition of militia formations in Bataysk, Taganrog and Myasnikovsky district. The results of the inspections and the conclusions and recommendations of the regional committee made on their basis were reflected in previously unpublished reports and resolutions, which serve as informative sources on the topic under consideration. The analysis of the documents of the Rostov Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks (b), which had not previously attracted the attention of researchers, allows us to say that there were serious omissions in the work on the creation of the people's militia in the Rostov region. In particular, by September 1941 it turned out that the militia either had not yet been created (Myasnikovsky district) or, as in Bataysk and Taganrog, did not represent coherent units, because the military training of the militia was not properly organized and many of them did not attend classes. Based on the content of the sources, the authors formulate a final conclusion about the reasons for the slow organization and unsatisfactory condition of the people's militia formations in Rostov Oblast. These reasons included not only the shortage of experienced instructors or the shortage of training weapons and methodological materials caused by the extreme wartime conditions, but also the peculiarities and specifics of the structure and functioning of the bureaucratic apparatus that existed in the USSR. Party and Soviet officials perceived the creation of militia formations as just another short-term political campaign, and therefore were not ready for long-term thorough work in this most important direction, concentrating their efforts on achieving quantitative indicators rather than on preparing the militia for combat. All this seriously hampered the process of creating the Rostov Oblast People's Militia and significantly reduced its potential.