Question by The Wise Priest: how did the soviet union gather so many soldiers during world war 2?
How was their armed forces growing so fast? They went from 500 000 or so men at the final stand at Moscow to over 2.5 million men plus additional men in reserves at the fight at Berlin? Were they just having a lot of babies before war or what because the sudden increase in the Soviet Union is left unexplainable despite their heavy losses?
Answers and Views:
Answer by thegreatestbak
I’m pretty sure Russia just had a much larger population…it probably helped that Russia under Communism could have allowed more efficient recruiting. They had to compete with better technology and more $ as well with zerg-like swaths of soldiers.
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Anne says
propaganda
The Grappler says
Da, tovarisch – now you take gun from dead comrade's hand, no training, and attack filthy Fascists, no turning back or KGB shoot you, your family, your family dog. Motherland be eternally grateful, Uncle Joe eternally grateful you save his ass from Fascists – now Motherland full of dead tovarisch with no training. Many graveyards full! Da, is gud!
They simply drafted them and sent them to fight, prepared or not, trained or not, and the Germans killed them in vast numbers.
Nutie says
your numbers are way off, at the start of operation Barbarossa the red army had more tanks than the rest of the world put together , and the same number of planes as the rest of the world, after 3 months of fighting the red army had lost over 3,000,000 men. In 1945, they crossed the Oder river into Germany with 4,500,000 soldiers. The western allies didn't invade Normandy to fight germans ,but to stop Stalin for taking all of Europe. If you can download the series The World at War, episode 5, Barbarossa.
cp_scipiom says
they just drafted everybody- from the youngest to the old. Anyone who did not sound enthusiastic about the draft was killed. The family of anyone who was taken as prisoner ended up in deportation to Siberia- so as to "encourage" the rest. The human wave attacks by soviet infantry were "guarded" by secret police troops- with machine guns. Not for support but to kill anyone who retreated
BTW the soviet army numbered 3 milion before the war started, and some 7 milion at the end. Also some 14 milion soldiers dead in the war- just because of idiotic orders from "political leaders"
armouror2000 says
the Figures are on or about D Day the russians had amassed 7.2 million men and women in the red army that is why they lost so many
Tarragon says
There are several possible reasons. But remember, it IS a huge country with huge numbers of people. Stalin himself is thought to have killed 20 million Russians before WW2 in failed crops, war and purges.
1. Stalin brought the Church back. He didn't ask people to defend Communism, oh no, they were exhorted to defend Holy Mother Russia. SO — more people came forward to serve.
2. Russia had Penal battalions, No-one was sent to the rear for a somewhat cushy life as a risoner, oh no. They were given suicidal roles in Penal Battalions leading suicidal charges, etc. In western armies, all defaulters and criminals wre "lost" to the army.
3. Stalin made use of local villagers during counterattacks. He would put the in the front wave, unarmed, so they could clear the minefields by going first.
4. Stalin used reinforcements from Siberia, especially once the LUCY spy ring had let him know a Japanese attack was unlikely. A two front war was a possibility — the Japanese had attacked Russia in 1939 at Nomonhan but lost so badly (eg Russian tanks were so superior to those of the Japanese) that they chose a Pacific strategy and didn't invade Russia.
Rubym says
Nazi Germany invaded their country. When Pearl Harbor was attacked, the next day the recruitment centers in the US were filled with men wanting to join. It was no doubt the same way in the Soviet Union when Germany invaded. Plus, Stalin was an absolute dictator, I doubt if there were many draft dodgers in the Soviet Union.
Right before the invasion, Russia was supposed to be 'neutral', staying out of the war, they did not need a big military. I don't know about the babies or the population. The Soviet Union was huge, and even though the Germans occupied much of the western part of the country and large centers, they did not control the entire country, there was a lot of area where the Soviet Military could build up and get ready to fight.
Jamison F says
they had conscription, in otherwords a draft, although i think it was forced more than anything, the United States did the same thing out armed forces went from i believe around 100,000 to 12,000,000 by the end of the war.
Mike says
becuase at the start of the war they didnt need that many soldiers so they had a small army. but when war started they would pull u out of your house give u a rifle and tell you run taht way and shoot
transorbian says
The Soviets had well more than 500,000 men in their armed forces before their "final stand" at Moscow.
They were able to muster so many soldiers because the USSR was a huge country which, in addition to Great Russians, had many different nationalities and ethnic groups, as the war went on Stalin coerced more and more of them into military service. Also they released many people from the gulag into penal battalions, used for such jobs as clearing minefields with their feet and conducting reconaissance "by fire".
I don't think there was able "baby boom" in the 1910s-1920s, if anything the opposite—it was a very turbulent time (World War One, Russian Civil War, Ukrainian famine) with problems in the food supply, making people arguably *less* likely to have children.
cowboydoc says
The Soviets were or had stationed off the Eastern end of the country quite a few divisions to fight if needed against the Japanese. They had been fighting the Japanese for years here. They divisions here were battle hardened and ready to go. When the Soviets started pushing the Germans back from Moscow these divisions came into play here and together they almost wiped out Hitlers army.
pro_sassenheime says
The Soviets did not make the mistake Hitler had done prior to the war breaking out. The Nazi ideology was that the woman's place is in the home, not having to work but raise families, this at a time when high unemployment in Germany was king, to lessen the problem but not as much solve it, the women were sent home with the obvious result that more jobs were freed up for the men which in turn made the reduced unemployment figures stand out very well painting Hitler with much needed gloss to impress the masses.
Women were sent home with incentives hard to resist, for instance, if you gave up your permanent job and were young enough to start a family (believe it or not) the Nazi government would help you get a place of your own and even help you furnish it, with the cost covered by the Reich. The conditions (from my historical memory) would be that you did not return to any form of work for two years. So far so good and a lot of happy couples. But there was a catch. The women had taken up a large part of Industry as well, however, they were now out of it for a long time and were back to basics, by this I mean, when it became clear that Germany was running out of 'men' because they were all at the front getting killed like flies it was a little late to re-call all those women to take over the vacated positions, they filled a lot of this with slave labor to make up but this example will show what it could mean, not to have women trained in Industry and the military.
When the chips were down in Russia, Stalin was in favor of anybody that could help, including the women and children. The amount of women and children that amassed to help behind the lines to rebuild that Army back to strength in terms of Industrialization was staggering. They literally rebuild those factories out of nothing to get the much needed equipment such as tanks etc of the ground in record time.
On top of this, some 800,000 women fought in the Soviet Army and had good reason too, as most, if not all, had been greatly affected by losing family through Nazi terror. Any General at that time could have told you (should he have been inclined) what it meant to become a prisoner with them, it was not pretty as you would be beaten, tortured and even kept alive. Those were the lucky ones. If you were handed over to the women you were made to last considerably longer under their torture and were rarely kept alive!
Tim D says
In 1941 the Soviet army was 303 Divisions and 22 brigades – almost 5 million troops, 3 million stationed in the west. By the end of the war almost 30 million had been conscripted (on top of the original 5 million). The 1939 population of the Soviet Union was 168 million.
Sarah, says
USSR is HUGE.
that's why. but they lost so many people.
My Opinion says
take a look at a map, soviet union f*cking huge! germans had better soldiers russians had unlimited soldiers. they couldve fought forever with the amount of people available to conscript. when the germans hit minefeilds they sent cows out to clear it, when the russians encounterd the same problem they sent soldiers, they shot there soldiers if they ran in most any circumstance. russias got the population for millions of miltia