Abstract
Based on central archives and on the case study of Kalinin province, Vanessa Voisin examines the punishment the Soviet state inflicted upon female collaborators sexually compromised with the enemy during WWII, and attempts to determine whether this retribution resembles the socio-political cleansing that happened in other parts of freed Europe at the end of the war. The dynamics of this type of sanction make it quite similar to its European counterparts: people being punished extra-judicially for developing friendly or intimate relationships with the invader. It appears that the security imperative for the Soviet authorities mattered far less than did the moral and cultural impact within the local communities. Indeed, such behavior aroused as much indignation in the USSR as in other occupied countries; and, as elsewhere, there was a perceived need to sanction those involved, even if only symbolically, in order to restore the norms of the society. Notably, however, the state did not understand this demand right away, focused as it was on political deviations more than moral ones.
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Notes
- 1.
Virgili and Capdevila, though, showed the shavings were not spontaneous at all, but staged by local vigilantes, most often creating a feeling of discomfort in local communities.
- 2.
Epifanov (1997), (2005), Hilger (2001), Weiner (2001), Obuhov (2002), Cerovic et al. (2008), Voisin (2015). There is no comprehensive work on “horizontal collaboration” in USSR. The instances given in literature suggest a prevalence of material incentives: getting better food supply, or even wages allowing survival, enjoying personal protection. Some women thought pregnancy would protect them from labour deportations in Germany (Burds 2009). Given the nature of Nazi occupation regime in USSR, the cases of love stories reported in this text should be taken with caution: the possible pleasure found in these relationships does not at all exclude an initial aim of mere survival.
- 3.
See Gelinada Grinchenko’s and Eleonora Narvselius chapter on Ostarbeiter in this volume.
- 4.
Mass repressions conducted according to decisions of the executive power, without resort to justice developed dramatically during the 1930s. They reached a climax during the Great Terror (Les “opérations de masse” de la “Grande Terreur” en URSS, 1937–1938, 2006; Shearer 1998).
- 5.
See the concept of “occupier-driven forms of collaboration” developed by Istvan Deak, Tony Judt and Jan T. Gross in the first all-European book on postwar purges (2000).
- 6.
Ehrenbourg, Ilya La Russie en guerre Gallimard Paris (1968), p.149. It’s the fifth volume of Ehrenburg’s memoirs, written and published in the 1960s.
- 7.
Polevoj, Boris N. Sobranie sočinenij v 9-ti t. Tom 7. Eti četyre goda: iz zapisok voennogo korrespondenta, kn.1 i 2 Hudožestvennaja literatura Moskva (1984), pp.123–131. Born in Kalinin province, at the beginning of the war Polevoi worked for the regional newspaper. Noticed in Moscow, his articles earned him a position in Pravda as soon as October 1941 and in December he covered the liberation of Kalinin. Polevoi’s memoirs were published much later, but he wrote them on the basis of the diary he held during the war.
- 8.
Polevoj, Boris N. Sobranie sočinenij t.7, p. 136.
- 9.
RGASPI f.17, op.88, d.387, l.48: report to the chief of the “Department of organization and instruction” of the Central Committee, Šamberg, October 1945.
- 10.
Nazi measures to prevent corruption of the “Aryan race” by intimate relationships with members of the “inferior races” (Jews or Slavs), in Germany (contacts between German civilians and Eastern forced laborers) and on occupied territory (contacts between Wehrmacht soldiers and local young women) failed. The German authorities then compelled women to abortions (Burds 2009, pp. 37–39, 42).
- 11.
RGASPI f.17, op.125, d.52, l.116–122: report to the secretary of the Central Committee and director of Sovinformburo Ščerbakov, November 5th, 1941.
- 12.
Kovalev, Boris N. Kollaboracionizm v Rossii v 1941–1945 gg.: tipy i formy Novgorodskij gosudarstvennyj universitet/Novgorodskij mežregional’nyj institut obščestvennyh nauk Velikij Novgorod 2009, pp. 360–363. Jeffrey Burds quotes another report from a Soviet agent sent on mission to Mogilev in April 1943 (Burds 2009, p. 40).
- 13.
Kovalev, Boris N. Kollaboracionizm v Rossii, p. 362.
- 14.
RGASPI, f.17, op.88, d.595, l.40–41: review of the reports received by Šamberg, March 1943. The journalist transcripted this testimony in order to warn the authorities about the state of mind of liberated populations.
- 15.
Burrin, Philippe La France à l’heure allemande, 1940–1944 Le Seuil Paris 1995, p. 468.
- 16.
TCDNI, f.147, op.3, d.337, l.1.
- 17.
On the impact of international tensions on the repression of inner enemies in the USSR (the fifth column) in the 1930s, see Martin, Terry The Origins of Soviet Ethnic Cleansing in: Journal of Modern History 70/4 (1998), pp. 847-848, and BURDS, Jeffrey The Soviet War against “Fifth Columnists’’: The Case of Chechnya, 1942–1944 in: Journal of Contemporary History 42/2 (2007), pp. 267–314.
- 18.
Kirschenbaum, Lisa “Our City, Our Heaths, Our Families”: Local Loyalties and Private Life in Soviet World War II Propaganda in: Slavic Review 59/4 (2000), pp. 840–841. In France, “horizontal collaboration” was understood as a dangerous challenge to established representations of the genders: Capdevila, Luc La “collaboration sentimentale”: antipatriotisme ou sexualité hors-normes? (Lorient, mai 1945) in: Rouquet, François Voldman, Danièle [ed.], Cahier de l’IHTP: Identités féminines et violences politiques (1936–1946) 31 (1995): http://www.ihtp.cnrs.fr/spip.php?article248&lang=fr. See also Virgili, Fabrice Les “tondues’’ à la Libération: le corps des femmes, enjeu d'une réappropriation in: Clio 1 (1995), http://clio.revues.org/document518.html.
- 19.
The exact spelling is “ sposobstvovanie kakim by to ni bylo sposobom inostrannomu gosudarstvu, nahodiaščemusja s Sojuzom SSR v sostoianii voiny,” which means helping, by any mean, a foreign state at war with the Soviet Union. Sbornik zakonodatel’nyh i normativnyh aktov o repressiiah i reabilitacii žertv političeskih repressii Izdatel’stvo Respublika Moskva 1993, pp. 28–32.
- 20.
Organy gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti SSSR v Velikoi Otečestvennoi voine. Sbornik dokumentov, tom II, livre 2 Izd-vo Rus Moskva 2000, pp. 413–414.
- 21.
RGASPI, f.644, op.2, d.31, l.6 et op.1, d.17, l.198. This resolution deals with the families of administrative collaborators and defectors.
- 22.
TCDNI, f.147, op.3, d.337, l.1. We know this text thanks to an explanation sent by the head of the NKVD Beria to the first secretary of Kalinin party committee, Boicov, on January 7th, 1942.
- 23.
Organy gosudarstvennoj bezopasnosti SSSR…tome III. livre 1.2003, pp. 131: precision signed by V. Merkulov (one of Beria's deputies), February 18th, 1942.
- 24.
On July 6th, 1941 a decree was adopted, aiming at repressing “alarmist and demoralizing rumors”: GARF f.7523, op.12, d.75, l.5. The decree was published in Pravda on July, 7th 1941.
- 25.
Kovalev, Boris N. Kollaboracionizm v Rossii, p. 348.
- 26.
Kirschenbaum, Lisa “Our City, Our Heaths, Our Families”. Another representation of Soviet women (under occupation) is analyzed by Gelinada Grinchenko and Eleonora Narvselius in Chap. 13 in this volume.
- 27.
In practice, many actions were assimilated to counter-revolutionary crimes (art. 58) thanks to article 16 of the Penal Code defining “analogy,” a notion allowing the prosecuting side to assimilate a crime unforeseen in the Code to the closest one.
- 28.
But this practice took its roots in the years of Civil War. In September 1918, the decree on Red Terror entitled the Tcheka with full power to isolate in concentration camps class enemies, but also thousands of “socially harmful” people, on mere administrative decision. Kudrjavcev, V.N., Trusov, A.I. Trusov Političeskaja justicija v SSSR, Juridičeskij Centr Press, Nauka Sankt-Peterburg 2002, pp. 83–84.
- 29.
Shearer, David Elements Near and Alien, pp. 850–851.
- 30.
Obuhov, V.V. Pravovye osnovy organizacii i dejatel’nosti voennyh tribunalov vojsk NKVD SSSR v gody Velikoj Otečestvennoj vojny 1941–1945 gg. PhD in Law MVD University Moskva 2002, pp. 120–121: “On the flaws in the work of the organs of judicial investigation, courts and in the surveillance exerted by the Procuracy in cases of collusion with the German-fascist enemy”.
- 31.
Shearer, David Elements Near and Alien, p. 878.
- 32.
Polevoj, Boris N. Sobranie sočinenij v 9-ti t. Tom 7, p. 124. In the memoirs, this question comes after the account of the scandal aroused around Vera and Lidya Tikhomirova. The construction of the scene aims at underlining that Polevoi's disapproval was contemporary to the events.
- 33.
Ehrenbourg, Ilya La Russie en guerre, p. 143.
- 34.
Ibid., p. 150.
- 35.
Polevoj, Boris N. Sobranie sočinenij v 9-ti t. Tom 7, p. 20. One should note that, not surprisingly, in the Soviet Union intellectuals waited quite some time before voicing publicly this kind of doubt about binary assessments of “collaboration” (in contrast with the debates or nuances expressed during the épuration in France (see Caroline Perret in Chap. 5 in this volume). One can find similar reflections in Aleksandr Dovzhenko’s diaries; but as soon as the film director tried to make public his thoughts about the fate of Ukrainians under occupation, he was harshly criticized and fell in disgrace. On this instance, see Dovzhenko A. Dnevnikovye zapisi, 1939–1956 Kharkov Folio 2013 and Iskusstvo kino №4 1990 pp. 89–95 (http://www.screenwriter.ru/cinema/71/).
- 36.
Ortenberg, David God 1942. Rasskaz-hronika Izd-vo političeskoj literatury Moskva 1988. Simonov, Konstantin, “Pis’ma iz Kryma. 2. Predatel’,” published in Krasnaja Zvezda, January 10th, 1942, p. 3. David Ortenberg evoked Simonov's article in his memoirs: pp. 24–26.
- 37.
TCDNI, f.7849, d.24887 s, l.43.
- 38.
Ibid., l.45–47: excerpts from the minutes of the session of the Special Conference, August 26th, 1942.
- 39.
I gathered a collection of about 80 judicial cases on the war and postwar purges (fund 7849, TCDNI).
- 40.
Ibid., l.3-3ob, 6-6ob, 9-9ob: order of arrest, April 9th, 1942.
- 41.
TCDNI, f.7849, d.24887 s, l.33-33ob: minutes of “M.”’s interrogation, March 21st, 1942. Emphasis is original.
- 42.
Ibid., l.35-35ob: minutes of the interrogation of a witness named “A.”, May 5th, 1942. She confirmed that an elegant German came everyday to “A.”’s around 3 or 4 pm, and that they played the gramophone which exasperated the neighbours.
- 43.
One of the witnesses of the Kalinin occupation we interviewed remembered how the police arrested collaborators of her neighbourhood after the liberation of the city (interview with Raissa Pavlovna P., November 28th, 2005).
- 44.
- 45.
RGASPI, f.17, op.88, d.172, l.12-19.
- 46.
RGASPI, f.17, op.88, d.595, l.41: review of the reports sent to Šamberg, March 1943.
- 47.
RGASPI, f.17, op.125, d.242, l.2-8: review of the reports from Kiev, Kharkov, Poltava, Smolensk, Kalinin, Orël, Kursk, Rostov, Stavropol, Krasnodar, Stalingrad, December 1943.
- 48.
RGASPI, f.17, op.88, d.634, l.15: review of the questions asked during a meeting at the Mstislav pedagogical Institute (Mogilev province, BSSR), May 11th, 1944.
- 49.
RGASPI, f.17, op.88, d.632, l.173: review on Carelian republic, September 5th, 1944.
- 50.
RGASPI, f.17, op.88, d.634, l.187: review of the questions asked to agitators in Rostov province (Russia) in June 1944, July 17th, 1944.
- 51.
RGASPI, f.17, op.125, d.242, l.100-101: review of the questions asked to the Central Committee propagandists in June 1944. It’s not clear whom the “we” used in these two questions refers to: Soviet authorities? Resistance fighters? or, as far as the children are concernent, the mothers themselves? There are no statistics on the “children of the enemy”: it is estimated that about ten thousand children were born from German fathers on the territory under civilian administration between 1941 and late 1943 (Pohl 2008).
- 52.
Kovalev (2009), p. 360.
- 53.
The Rainbow was directed by famous Soviet filmmakers, Mark Donskoy and Earail Perelstein. The feature movie is based on a the novel of the not less reknown Wanda Wasiliewska, a communist Polish writer who became during the war the symbol of Soviet-Polish friendship (she decided to stay in the USSR after the annexation of Polish Western provinces in September 1939 and from then shared her life with one of the most famous Ukrainian playwright, Oleksandr Kornyichuk). The Rainbow was a box-office success and was exported in the Allied countries. In Soviet Union, it was released in February 1944.
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Voisin, V. (2018). The Soviet Punishment of an All-European Crime, “Horizontal Collaboration”. In: Grinchenko, G., Narvselius, E. (eds) Traitors, Collaborators and Deserters in Contemporary European Politics of Memory. Palgrave Macmillan Memory Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-66496-5_10
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