Assess the impact on the USSR of the Great Patriotic War

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ASSESS THE IMPACT ON THE USSR OF THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR (1941-1945)

In 1941, Hitler ordered an attack on the USSR, German troops invaded and so the USSR entered World War II. The war lasted for four years, with such ferocity and scale that everything in the Soviet Union was subordinated to the needs of war.

Socially it could be said the Soviet Union was ready for the fearful hardships of war. The people’s labour in the 1930s in the form of collectivisation and industrialisation had prepared them for the sacrifices that had to be made to fight against Germany. There previous suffering helped by providing a powerful asset to the war effort as under Stalin’s supreme authorities power prepared to mobilise themselves to work on the war footing. This did not however help when after six months of war, half the soviet population was under Soviet occupation. This social impact signified a huge workforce that was unable to fight against Germany even if the territory gained by German forces was small in scale of the whole of the Soviet Union.

Other social factors included were the Army’s unceasing need for men to fight. The need for troops seemed unending, the longer the war continued the longer the list of casualty’s consequently in the continuing need for troops. At the end of the war 8,000,000 people had died under the Red Army with another 5,000,000 men in active service. Men from the country joined the Army in the hope that it would provide them with a skill and thereby bettering them for civilian life. It helped people even if they did not gain a skill that they could not later put to use in civilian life, military service affected their social status pulling them out of the rut which they had previously been settled in.

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Other social impact included the major movement of roles of women. With the large numbers of men draining into the Army, and the continued high demands for increased production in both factories and farms the worker vacancy had to be filled with women and children. The impact here of war is clear as large number of women moved into jobs what were previously done by men. Women appeared to gain higher status and responsibility; however the impact was small however as after the war this did not last when it came to peace.

Economically for the USSR, the war was ...

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