"The Unwomanly Face of War - an Oral History of
Women in World War II," by Svetlana Alexievich, 1985, translated into
English, 2017
More than a one million Russian girls and women
fought in World War II, defending the USSR from the German/Axis
invasion. This is the greatest military
mobilization of women in history and reflective of its character in the USSR as a
'peoples war.' For all the bourgeois
feminists in the U.S. who
celebrate the strides that U.S.
women have recently made in the U.S.
army, these stories show who was first. Alexievich
tells the personal, emotional memories of these women, be they nurses, snipers,
partisans, underground fighters, pilots, signal-women, communication operators,
corps-women, railway workers, engineers, anti-aircraft officers, doctors, truck
drivers, tank mechanics, cooks, washers, sappers or front-line troops. One woman sniper killed 75 Germans. No position was closed to females.
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| The Motherland Incarnate |
Alexievich is not a socialist or communist but she is
a journalist who specializes in oral histories.
She won the 2015 Nobel prize for this kind of work. These brutal, sad or wonderful stories are
told from the unique point of view of mostly older women reflecting on their lost,
youthful lives in the war. The book took
26 years to compile, so the book covers a very broad range of women and time. These kind of emotional and personal tales
have been ignored in the broad canvas of 'history unfolding,' or whatever you
want to call the traditional view of war - the movement of armies, the actions
of generals, the technology of death.
But through them you can see what it was really like for the Soviet
citizen in the midst of this horror.
A few reflections, as there are hundreds of
interviews here. Memory is obviously a
tricky thing, made up of emotions, choices and impacts, not some linear,
perfect process. Alexievich recognizes
this and understands that memory creates itself.
Leaving Home:
Many stories start with the traumatic moment they hear that the war has
started. Girls in school, at home,
shopping. Most want to immediately
volunteer, even if they were only 15.
The too young girls are so persistent they talk their way into some
position in the army or sneak into the services on the back of a truck. Older
Komosol girls (youth section of the CP) are taken immediately. Many volunteer and whole trainloads of girls
headed to the Front. These girls would not think of leaving the
defense of the 'Motherland' to just men and boys. Dying for the cause was taught in school as
was the equality between girls and boys.
Clothes:
Clothes were a big issue for the girls and women. The Soviet Army had no real clothes for women
initially, especially in the small sizes of teenage girls. So the boots are too big, the pants billowing,
the shirts hang, the underwear is bulky men's underwear and there are no
supplied bras. Menstruation is
difficult. Clothing even changed the way the women walked. Only after two years of war women's underwear
begins to be supplied to the army.
Love:
Some girls found husbands or lovers in the armed forces. They watched them die. They formed life-long bonds. They got crushes on men that disappeared. For many, this was their first love, as they
were very young. For some, their last.
Children:
Some women had to leave their children behind, with relatives, with
neighbors. Some even took them into the
war - with the partisans in the forests, in military units. One women actually drowned her baby because
it was crying while her partisan unit was hiding in swamp waters. When the women returned to their homes, they
were sometimes unrecognized by the children they had to leave behind. One woman arrived back home on a horse, with
a short haircut, a side-arm and military clothes. Who is she, the child wondered?
Stalin:
For some women, Stalin, the War and the Victory were closely identified
and this emotional connection continued throughout their lives. For others, some of whom lost Communist or peasant brothers or fathers to the
prison camps, Stalin was a failure who left the USSR totally unprepared for a
German assault, losing millions of Soviet soldiers to death or capture in a
month; who jailed and shot the majority of experienced Red Army generals in
1937; who imprisoned innocent Soviet soldiers or partisans after they had been captured
by the Germans. These are the most political sections and indicate that the war
was won, not because of Stalin, but sometimes in spite of him. The May 9 'Victory" was a victory for
the whole Russian people, a true victory of 'peoples war.'
Blood:
Nearly all the girls and women in these stories did not know how they
would behave under fire or bombardment or with injuries or around death - like
any new soldier would. Nearly all
managed to get through the first hellish experiences. However, some clearly had PTSD. One woman smelled blood almost everywhere,
which made her sick to her stomach. One
could not have anything red in her house.
For the nurses and corps-women, blood soaked their clothes constantly,
dried and stiff, and they had to get used to it.
Kindness:
The officers and men of the Soviet Army treated the women with kindness
and tried to protect and help them. Sexual
assaults were very rare, at least in these pages. Commanders acted like good fathers in many
instances. The girls, who hated the Germans, nevertheless found themselves
helping and feeding the German wounded.
The Germans:
The German Wehrmacht killed prisoners and civilians, sometimes using
kerosene to burn a village church or school filled with people. The Germans killed and sometimes mutilated all
captured women. Contrary to this, the
Soviet Army rules did not allow German prisoners to be killed, nor German
civilians - though there were rapes.
There is no 'equivalency' between the two sides, as the bourgeois press likes
to pretend.
Hair & Makeup:
Women had to cut their hair - not even braids were allowed, so some
sneakily attempted to let it grow, curl it, dye and comb it. They created on-site make-up. Other military women felt that they had to
wait until the war was over to become 'womanly' again, as it was disloyal to do it while in the war.
Roles:
Women were in every branch of the service, even in the navy, which had a
superstition against women on ships.
Girls and women formed the legendary 'Night Witches," which flew
small, old planes just above the treetops by sight, in the night. They held positions in various parts of the armed forces, from private to officer,
and led men in a good number of instances.
Physical Tasks:
Young, small women hauled wounded men by crawling with them on their
backs through mud, over earth, time and time again. One woman hauled 481 wounded soldiers from
under fire. Rifles taller than they.
Endless heavy basins of dirty water to wash clothes in. Heavy artillery shells. Digging deep anti-tank ditches. Building bridges. Constant hunger and stress, which turned one
young women's hair grey at 19.
Coming Home: Women that did not go into the Soviet army
slurred the military women as 'whores' and 'unwomanly' and attempted to cut
them off from male relationships when they returned home. Nothing is left in many of the villages they
return to. Many men are dead and the female
ex-soldiers must begin the heavy work of harvesting, plowing, planting alone,
or with young children. Women later became a much larger part of the Soviet working class that labored outside the home.
The Soviet experience in WWII is somewhat of a
mystery to the majority of people in the U.S.,
who think the U.S.
played the main role in beating the Axis at "D-day" with their 'Band
of Brothers." Au contraire.
These stories range geographically from villages to Stalingrad to
Leningrad to Berlin. After the war, the
role of women in the USSR rose because of their war-time experiences, not
just as "Rosie the Riveter" but as "Rosa the Soldier."
These remembrances give 'women's liberation' a whole new meaning - perhaps one
middle-class U.S. feminists are not used to.
Prior reviews on women in the USSR: "Women in Soviet Art," "Soviet
Women: Walking the Tightrope."
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Red Frog
August 26,2017
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