Bloomsbury Demobilized Veterans in Late Stalinist Leningrad: Soldiers to Civilians

This book investigates the demobilization and post-war readjustment of Red Army veterans in Leningrad and its environs after the Great Patriotic War. Over 300,000 soldiers were stood down in this war-ravaged region between July 1945 and 1948. They found the transition to civilian life more challenging than many could ever have imagined. For civilian Leningraders, reintegrating the rapid influx of former soldiers represented an enormous political, economic, social and cultural challenge. In this book, Robert Dale reveals how these former soldiers became civilians in a society devastated and traumatized by total warfare. Dale discusses how, and how successfully, veterans became ordinary citizens. Based on extensive original research in local and national archives, oral history interviews and the examination of various newspaper collections, Demobilized Veterans in Late Stalinist Leningrad peels back the myths woven around demobilization, to reveal a darker history repressed by society and concealed from historiography. While propaganda celebrated this disarmament as a smooth process which reunited veterans with their families, reintegrated them into the workforce and facilitated upward social mobility, the reality was rarely straightforward. Many veterans were caught up in the scramble for work, housing, healthcare and state hand-outs. Others drifted to the social margins, criminality or became the victims of post-war political repression. Demobilized Veterans in Late Stalinist Leningrad tells the story of both the failure of local representatives to support returning Soviet soldiers, and the remarkable resilience and creativity of veterans in solving the problems created by their return to society. It is a vital study for all scholars and students of post-war Soviet history and the impact of war in the modern era. Review Dales case study of Leningrads and Leningraders experience of demobilization after World War II serves as a case study of the larger experience of Soviet demobilization, but with atypical, site-specific exceptions. Using not only local and national archives and newspapers, but also incorporating memoirs and first-hand oral testimony, Dale shows how local factors played an important part in shaping soldiers postwar transitions. This is an important study of late Stalinism, which reveals a protracted period of social transition, pervaded throughout with the tensions, divisions and conflicts created by veterans demobilization. The author makes useful comparisons between late Stalinist Leningrad and Britain, America, and Germany after both the First and Second World Wars, which gives a global context to Soviet demobilization and the veterans quest to reintegrate into normal Soviet society. --Roger R Reese, Professor of History, Texas A&M University, USAInteresting and accessible. Robert Dale calmly leads us through the arguments and uses personal stories to illuminate them effectively.The Great Patriotic War did not end in 1945 -- at least not for the demobilized veterans. Soviet society had been torn apart. Turning soldiers back into civilians proved a formidable task. Robert Dale takes us through the painful process of reintegration, focussing on the extraordinary experiences of Leningraders. There could be no happy ending but, for surprising reasons, Dale also shows us how disaster was kept at bay. --Joanna Bourke, Professor of History, Birkbeck College, University of London, UKFocusing on returning soldiers' postwar struggles to obtain adequate housing, necessary medical care, and rewarding work in a city that was itself ravaged by war, Demobilized Veterans in Late Stalinist Leningrad offers a fascinating picture of individuals and Soviet society in transition from war to peace. In Leningrad, where veterans had to compete with survivors of the blockade for scarce resources, the homecoming rarely resembled the official ""myth"" of returning heroes embraced by grateful civilians