"Did Russian soldiers in ww2 fight from patriotism or fear?" Topic

It is an aspect of teaching a unit on the Eastern Front that has raised itself several times with my 14/15 year olds, especially after watching the open sequence of the Enemy at the Gates.
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Did the Russians fight so hard from a love of the motherland and hatred of the invader or because the NKVD and others would shoot them if they retreated?

Both. Soviet soldiers certainly were motivated by fear but a good number of them fought with intense patriotic fervour.

A lot of Russians came back to Russia after fleeing communism to fight for the motherland. There was a definite patriotic motivation.

But there were certainly cases where they carried out certain attacks from fear and I'm sure there were plenty of soldiers who didn't give a crap for the motherland and fought anyway.

In any army people are going to fight for all kinds of different reasons. The soviet army was no exception.

Both I'd say. Early on there was a great deal of fear in the ranks about the "Hitlerites" (as Joe Beyerle said the Russians called them). However, as the war continued and they recaptured bits and pieces of their territory they saw just what destruction the Nazis had wrought hatred became a prime motivator. If you want to show your students this side of the way get a hold of the "Why We Fight" episode "The Battle For Russia". You should be able to find these all over for a song as they are public domain now.

Yes.

As Stalin purportedly said to Admiral King: "It takes a very brave man not to be a hero in the Red Army."

The actual breakdown of why individual Russians may have fought is someting like this:

14 because they had nothing better to do
56 because they were were running away from shotgun weddings
127 because they had fathered illegitimate children and were running out on the responsibility.
298 just liked the uniforms
727 volunteered to get away from the wife
1,346 wanted to see foreign lands….

Pictors said it all. The reasons are multifarious.

Most armies throughout history kept provosts of some sort behind the front-lines to turn back men who ran from the battle, there are recorded incidencies of the British shooting their own soldiers in WW2 – the Escaut Canal 1940 and the battles for Hill 112, 1944, are two examples that immediately spring to mind.

Mark

Both. Stalin was if nothing else a realist. You will notice, especially after things became desperate, the call was to defend "Holy Mother Russia". There were few call to fight for Marxist-Leninist priciples or for the party. Instead Stalin relied on the almost mystical attachment the average Russian had/has for the "motherland". Regardless the regime Russians have an attachment to the land that is hard for some to understand.

As was mentioned once they recaptured sections of Russia, even briefly, seeing what the Germans had done became even more motivation and suddenly Russian propaganda about the nazi "beast" didnt seem exaggerated at all.

As Stalin said, "it takes a brave man to be a coward in the Soviet army"

some i'm sure were just hungry and had nothing better to do

I expect many of them didn't even know -- it was "the right thing to do." Nor do I expect many of them had the same reason for the whole war, or often all the way through one day.

The moitivation for someone in western Ukraine or Poland when he was informed he was in the Red Army in '44 must have been quite complex.

Both, but mostly fear--of their leaders, and the Germans. So does every army I think. The kind or patriotism that drives young men to fight almost always has fear of the enemy at it's roots.

Later in the war hatred of the invaders became more prevalent, particularly once:

a) areas were liberated and the atrocious German treatment of the population came to light

b) the majority of individuals and families had relatives who had been killed.

the desire for revenge was one the things which fuelled the excesses of the Red Army in 1945.

Earlier in the war, fear of the consequences of not fighting was perhaps more prevalent.

The only vet of the WWII soviet army I've ever known was a fellow who was conscripted in late 42 at the age of 14 or 15. He told me that he joined because there was food in the army and none outside of it. On another occasion he said that he had fought the invaders (he fought more German allies than Germans)because he was ordered to, he killed them (and he made a real point between fighting and killing)because he could.

What was the motivation of American soldiers? British soldiers? Most were drafted.

At the micro level, most soldiers fight because of small group loyalty; they fight for their buddies.

I've certainly read enough brief autobiographical accounts by Soviet soldiers to know that some of them were motivated by patriotism.

It demeans the Russian soldiers and people of the Great Patriotic War to suggest they fought only because they were told to and feared punishment as an alternative. It takes only a few minutes to find a lot of autobiographical material on the internet or at the library. All along the frontier when the Germans invaded in 41 they were surprised that the Russians defended tenaciously and died in their positions even in hopeless situations. In the 18th century it was widely acknowledged that Russian soldiers did not run, they had to be killed to be defeated. Even the famous 'Not a step back' order was probably not as draconian as we have the impression in the west. It was targetted at officers and was a symbolic statement targetted at raising morale by appealing to the troops, not threatening them.(Robert Overy, Russia's War). In the Moscow counter offensive Zhukov impressed on his officers to spare their men. In any army shirkers and deserters get short shrift – in an army under intense pressure they get even less. The Germans shot plenty of their own men too. Did the two great despotic systems motivate their armies in very different ways ?

I am not sure it demeans anyone to suggest that they fought for reasons other than pure patriotism.

Obviously every soldier has or had his or her own reasons, some personal, some patriotic, some simply convenient.

One NZ WW2 vet I knew joined the army because he had run away from home and nowhere to live, because he wanted to see more of the world rather than his small home town, because some of his mates had joined, because he thought the uniform might impress girls, and also perhaps because he thought Hitler had to be beaten. Which was the main factor? Who knows or cares?

Perhaps there were other reasons too, but even that is was an awful lot of reasons for a 17 year old (four years younger than the minimum but nobody was asking too many silly questions in those days).

He subsequently fought for his comrades and mates rather than King or Country – but that does not mean he was not diligently doing his duty fro King and Country, quite the opposite. I am sure Russians felt the same.

Why they joined may have been very different from why they fought.

As to compulsion. I saw an interview with a very old WW1 vet (now obviously deceased) saying how insulted he and his mates were when told the MPs were in the trenches ready to shoot anyone who did not go over the top. They were going anyway but felt their effort was diminished by the threat of compulsion…

"At the micro level, most soldiers fight because of small group loyalty; they fight for their buddies."

Quite honestly, this is the overriding reason AFAIK why soldiers will fight at all. *Patriotism* is all well and good, and no doubt is a primary cause for *enlistment* in the ranks, but at the end of the day, soldiers *fight* for each other.

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net

Three of my relatives fought and survived in WWII. Two were killed in 1941, and one died from illness in 1942. My grandmother's brother was in army from 1942, piloting Hurricane and later Yaks near Murmansk. Aviation was always prestigious in SU, and fighters were aviation's elite, so he told me that he wanted to fly – he wanted to fight fascists, but he didn't want to go in infantry. He had some flying courses before war, so he was able to get in air forces. His score at the end of the war was not especially great – 6 planes, but he was not shot down himself – he was very reasonable and very cautious. So for him there was prestige and patriotism. You can't place NKVD in the air – anyway, he was more than willing to fight.
My grandfather was already in the army in 1941, and I suppose that was important factor that he survived. He was retreating from western Byelorussia till Moscow, and then went back till Vienna, finishing the war as artillery captain. He told me that first months of war were quite depressing – losses and inability to kill in return. He was so close to death on many occasions that he didn't really care at that time. They were afraid, that's for sure, but they were afraid of being killed by constant bombing or shelling. From the time of battle of Moscow he had not seen or heard much about "zagradotryady" – these NKVD machine guns that are such a popular subject in the West. OK, he didn't took part in Kharkov operation, so he was either in defense or successfull offenses, but stil… For him patriotism was important, hatred was also a factor, but not always. Fear of been shot by his own was not an issue…I recall a story about crossing of Dnepr, when his unit was asked for volunteers to be in the first wave of going to enemy shore…many volunteered, too many, so the commander had to remove some from the list. It was before some Soviet holiday, and the purpose of operation was to cover the real place of crossing..so these soldiers were as good as dead. His commander wanted him to stay, so he saved him in this way, even that grandfather recalled that he was angry that he was not allowed to go with first heroes.
There was also a kind of "sport" factor – there were some missions where you were more likely to get medals and orders, and he told me that it was to some extent important, especially after 1943, when the end of the war was inevitable.
Now, the last of my relatives, who is still alive, joined the army when he was 17, and finished the war in Germany. He is still very ideology-driven, and thinks that Stalin was the best leader Russia ever had. So, for him patriotism was the only real drive. He himself shot several soldiers, who ran from tank attack in 1943, and he is proud of that.

'To kill a Russian isn't enough, you have to make
him fall then' (Napoleon)

Marc

"His score at the end of the war was not especially great – 6 planes, but he was not shot down himself – he was very reasonable and very cautious. So for him there was prestige and patriotism. You can't place NKVD in the air – anyway, he was more than willing to fight. "

Your maternal Great Uncle was a fighter *ace,* Barin! And there's an old Western pilot's saying from my Uncle Eddie's day (he was a bush pilot and air racer in the 20s and 30s):

"There are old pilots, there are bold pilots, but there are no old, bold pilots!"

Za Rodina!

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net

The moitivation for someone in western Ukraine or Poland when he was informed he was in the Red Army in '44 must have been quite complex.

My grandfather was Ukrainian/Polish (his father was Polish, the village ended up in the Ukraine in the peace settlement at the end of WWI). He was sent to Siberia in '38 and whem the camps were turned out, he walked to British Persia along with many others.

He joined the Polish and fought in North Africa and Italy. He was wounded at Monte Cassino and recuperated in Britain. At the end of the war, he was "offered" the chance to return to the USSR, but refused and stayed to work in the woolen mills in Scotland. Many others did something similar, or were sent abroad before the war started by their parents, and there's now a thriving Polish/Ukrainian community in Britain.

What's really interesting is that many of his comrades fought for different armies – some old guys I knew drew Wehrmacht pensions, some had fought for the Red Army and decided not to go back, others, like my grandfather, fought for the Polish Legion and could never return.

My PhD supervisor's parents fled the Ukraine in the 30s during the famine, and another bloke I worked with, well, both his parents were bundled onto a boat when they were children at the outbreak of war and never heard from their Polish families again.

As the consensus here goes – sometimes you fought for a cause or principle, sometimes for the army you hated least, and sometimes for the guy who pointed the gun at you.

I suppose when it comes down to it, while fear is always a factor when living in a totalitarian regime, it can't be the deciding one when running an army.

There's no way the Red Army could have functioned and improved over the course of four years while engaged in one of the most destructive conflicts ever fought, purely on the basis of the NKVD forcing men to fight.

They were there, but so was the will to resist.

<<….there are recorded incidencies of the British shooting their own soldiers in WW2 – the Escaut Canal 1940 and the battles for Hill 112, 1944, are two examples that immediately spring to mind….>>

Do you have any references for this (not doubting your word, just interested in reading more)? I was told that Auchinleck – who was the most humane of generals – asked Churchill for permission (or possibly even an Act of Parliament) to allow him to execute deserters in N Africa, once more conscripts started filling up the ranks and replacing the losses of Regulars, because there seemed to be no existing disciplinary deterrent that worked.