'The Motherland Calls’: Soviet Women in the Great Patriotic War, 1941-1945

Women played a pivotal role in the Soviet victory over Nazism in the ‘Great Patriotic War, 1941-45’. In contrast to most other combatant countries in the Second World War, Soviet women took on roles in the military, industry and agriculture that elsewhere were generally regarded as the exclusive domain of males. This chapter narrates the roles of Soviet women on the front lines and on the home and domestic fronts. It analyzes the mechanisms employed by the draconian Stalinist regime at a critical moment to mobilise millions of women for the war effort. It also considers to what degree, if at all, mass female participation in the Soviet war effort was emancipatory for those who participated in it. [From the Author]