Soviet Women and the Great Patriotic War (1941–1945): Towards a Historiographical Debate

The role of Soviet women in achieving the victory of the Soviet Union in the Great Patriotic War against Nazi Germany and its allies is a topic with a long historiographical tradition. In the latest studies carried out by both Russian historians (including late Soviet ones) and historians from other countries, this topic is considered in the mainstream of several major trends. One of them is related to the issues of economic history. Along with teenagers and elderly people, women became the most important labor resource during the war, massively replacing men of working age who went to the front. Their participation in the staffing of all sectors of the Soviet state economy is an unprecedented example of the implementation of one of the models of the mobilization economy caused by the war. But this gives rise to another trend: due to what, by what methods was it possible to carry out a mass mobilization of female labor? The classical version of Soviet historiography unambiguously characterized this process as a labor feat based on a high and nationwide sense of patriotism. Some post-Soviet and many Western historians see it primarily as a result of Soviet propaganda and state coercion. Finally, the position of women in production during the Great Patriotic War, their working and living conditions are considered in the context of the “new social history”, i. e. the history of everyday life, gender history, etc. Based on statistical indicators, this article summarizes the empirical material proving that Soviet women, in fact, for the first time in the world, turned out to be a determining force in meeting the needs of the military economy. Their labor achievements, material support for the front through the Defense Fund, and the donor movement were mainly the result of a sincere and selfless desire. It was caused by hatred of the enemy and the desire to support the fighting men, which, among other things, reconciled them with the strict labor legislation and difficult working and living conditions inevitable in the conditions of total war.