When the Wehrmacht rolled into the Soviet Union in World War II, it
got more than it bargained for. Notwithstanding the Red Army's
retreat, Soviet citizens fought fiercely against German occupiers,
engaging in raids, sabotage, and intelligence gathering--largely
without any oversight from Stalin and his iron-fisted rule.
Kenneth Slepyan provides an enlightening social and political
history of the Soviet partisan movement, a people's army of
irregulars fighting behind enemy lines. These insurgents included
not only civilians-many of them women-but also stranded Red Army
soldiers, national minorities, and even former collaborators. While
others have documented the military contributions of the movement,
Slepyan is the first to describe it as a social phenomenon and to
reveal how its members were both challenged and transformed by the
crucible of war.
By tracing the movement's origins, internal squabbles, and
evolution throughout the war, Slepyan shows that people who
suddenly had the autonomy to act on their own came to rethink the
Stalinist regime. He assesses how partisan initiative and
self-reliance competed with and countered the demands of state
control and how social identities influenced relations among
partisans, as well as between partisans and Soviet authorities.
Slepyan has tapped newly opened Soviet archives, as well as
wartime radio broadcasts and Communist Party publications and
memoirs, to depict the partisans as agents actively pursuing their
own agendas. His book gives us a picture of their day-to-day
struggle that was previously unknown to all but those few who
personally survived the experience, paying special attention to
questions of nationality, ethnicity, and gender to illuminate the
sociopolitical relations within this diverse group. Through these
varied accounts, he demonstrates that Soviet citizens reinterpreted
Stalinism and the Soviet experience in the context of total
war.
Offering numerous fresh insights into the partisans'
multifaceted relationship with the state, Slepyan's book reveals
the ways in which the war simultaneously reinforced and undermined
both Stalinism and the Soviet system. Ultimately, his study rescues
the Soviet partisans from obscurity to depict the complexity of
their lives and underscore their vital contributions to the defense
of their homeland.
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