Women’s Antifascist Resistance on German-Occupied Territory Through the Lens of Soviet Leaflets,1941–5

An inebriated German soldier entered the hut of a Russian woman in a village in Leningrad oblast. Speaking broken Russian, he propositioned her to come to his room later that evening. At first, she did not understand him, but when he attempted to embrace her, she spat into his face and began to scream. Her screams and those of her children brought other soldiers running to the hut, but when they entered and saw him beating her they simply began to laugh. The soldier then snatched a gun and shot the woman before dragging her outside and throwing her into the gutter. This tale of attempted rape and murder was the subject of a partisan leaflet, entitled “Fascist Rapists.” It was followed by a call to arms. “Russian women [t]ake vengeance on the German rapists for [your] defiled honor! Do not give habitation to the Fascist murderers! Blood for blood, death for death!” ¹ Intended for the eyes of civilians remaining on occupied parts of Leningrad oblast, this leaflet was part of a propaganda campaign aimed at driving a wedge between them and the occupiers.

For Soviet authorities, leaflets distributed by air or directly by partisans were virtually the only way to reach civilians isolated behind enemy lines. ² They not only served as counterweights to Nazi propaganda and reminders that Soviet power had not fallen but also as warnings against collaboration. During 1941, however, leaflets largely consisted of little more than excerpts from Soviet information bulletins that were printed in Moscow and Leningrad for distribution on occupied territory. ³ Meanwhile, few if any of them reached civilians. This was partly due to the weakness and isolation of the first partisan detachments and partly due to the inability of Soviet aircraft to drop leaflets deep behind enemy lines. ⁴ It was only in the course of 1942 that the situation began to change as the partisan movement was reorganized and centralized and detachments were equipped with radio receivers and printing equipment. ⁵ Meanwhile, the movement’s leadership also began to recognize that propaganda referencing local conditions would be the most effective. ⁶ Thus, starting in 1942, leaflets began highlighting nearby atrocities. They also began referencing local sons and daughters who were meant to serve as role models. All of this was supposed to localize the conflict, thereby reminding civilians that they still had a personal stake in it even if the frontlines had passed. The proportion of this material subsequently increased with stories originating on occupied territory soon making up the majority of leaflets. ⁷ Meanwhile, themes first advanced in 1942 continued to be developed and expanded in the following years. ⁸

In addition to individual partisan detachments, which increasingly printed their own leaflets, several Soviet organizations were responsible for producing leaflets destined for occupied parts of Leningrad oblast. ⁹ They included the Leningrad Headquarters of the Partisan Movement, the Leningrad Regional Committee of the Communist Party (obkom), and the Political Department of the Northwestern Front, all of whom printed leaflets for distribution by partisan detachments under their respective commands. ¹⁰ While partisan detachments were sometimes able to exercise considerable autonomy, these organizations were integrated into the Party and military hierarchies and their leaflets reflected official expectations. Although most took the form of general appeals, some singled out specific segments of the population, such as women (zhenshchiny) and girls/young women (devushki). ¹¹ Although less common, such appeals are worth considering because they not only illuminate Soviet efforts to engage with and win the hearts and minds of women but also because they help us understand the expectations and anxieties Soviet authorities continued to harbor towards them.

Over the preceding decades, women’s roles had changed dramatically in the Soviet Union. Even as Bolshevik concerns about their relative levels of political consciousness and “backwardness” persisted, women were thought to be valuable levers in the transformation of society. ¹² During the First Five-Year Plan, millions of women were encouraged to enter the industrial labor force as entire sectors of the economy were restructured and regendered. ¹³ By 1936, despite banning abortion and restricting divorce, the Soviet Union enshrined gender equality into law. Many have noted that this did little to alleviate the double and at times triple burden women faced. ¹⁴ Still, scholars such as Anna Krylova have shown that the gender-neutral rhetoric and propaganda of the decade did have a profound impact on everyday life. By enabling women to articulate an alternative vision of femininity from the one exemplified by the figure of the mother, the gender-neutral rhetoric encouraged women to imagine different roles for themselves. ¹⁵ Meanwhile, by participating in the military-preparedness campaigns that aimed to teach youth military-related skills, many young women were encouraged to view their participation in the upcoming war as “natural and constitutive of their Soviet womanhood.” ¹⁶

Consequently, countless young women volunteered for service in the Red Army when war broke out. But, despite the regime’s rhetoric of gender equality, most were initially rebuffed. Before long, however, the heavy losses of the summer and fall of 1941 encouraged the Soviet leadership to begin accepting women. Throughout the war, Soviet newspapers continued to portray women in various nontraditional and combat roles much as they had done during the 1930s. But, in a sign of continuing ambivalence, the regime banned “the direct state-sponsored and state-affiliated enticement of young women to become soldiers.” ¹⁷ In other words, despite featuring stories about women snipers, fighter pilots, and partizankas (female partisan fighters), propaganda destined for the home front never explicitly directed women to follow in their footsteps. In contrast, leaflets did just this by overtly calling on women to join the partisans and fight alongside men.

Despite a robust literature on the partisan movement, relatively little is known about the efforts Party, Komsomol, and partisan officials took to engage with and recruit women on occupied territory. ¹⁸ While relations between the partisans and civilians were initially characterized by distrust and suspicion, this situation gradually began to change. ¹⁹ In September 1942, the People’s Commissariat of Defense issued Order No. 189, which stipulated that the partisan movement should become an “all people’s movement.” ²⁰ This order paved the way for civilians to play a larger role in the struggle. Still, notwithstanding regional differences, it was only after Stalingrad that the partisan movement witnessed a mass influx of civilians from occupied territory. Meanwhile, women continued to face various hurdles to their participation, so much so, that the Komsomol found it necessary to carry out a propaganda campaign beginning in 1943 specifically targeting them. ²¹ Ultimately, approximately 28,500 women served in the partisans. ²² They not only participated in and contributed to all facets of partisan warfare, but they came to symbolize female resistance in wartime and postwar propaganda. ²³ While the nature of propaganda destined for the home front and the place of the partizanka in it has been studied, the same cannot be said about propaganda destined for occupied territory. ²⁴ This article addresses this gap by considering the nature of appeals directed at women and girls remaining on occupied parts of Leningrad oblast.

To a certain extent, Soviet leaflets featured many of the same motifs found in propaganda destined for the home front. To mobilize civilians, leaflets cultivated hatred towards the enemy by underlining German atrocities against women and children. Moreover, leaflets highlighted the exploits of local and national heroes, such as Zoia Kosmodem´ianskaya, to inspire women for armed struggle. ²⁵ Armed struggle, however, was not enough. Leaflets sought to not only encourage women to join the partisans, but to ultimately sacrifice themselves for the motherland. Whereas Red Army soldiers were supposed to die fighting rather than face capture, women on occupied territory were expected to make a similar choice whether in the ranks of the partisans or in their everyday lives. Thus, they were encouraged to resist to the death even in the face of sexual assault and rape. Anything less, it was suggested, would be a sign of moral and political weakness.

By analyzing the gendered expectations imbedded in Soviet leaflets, we can glimpse the underlying anxieties and suspicions that officials continued to harbor towards women. Although they represented a valuable resource, women were also considered a potential source of enemy recruitment. ²⁶ Accordingly, leaflets sought to not only mobilize them for armed struggle and self-sacrifice but to also discourage behavior that was thought to aid the enemy. The nature of the occupation, however, often made it impossible for women to resist let alone to make the kinds of sacrifices that were expected of them. Because they were the primary caregivers for children and the elderly, many women could not go into the forests in search of the partisans. Still, even when they were willing and able to leave behind their families, women had to overcome the sexism of their comrades-in-arms. Much like the propaganda of the previous decade, leaflets failed to acknowledge the barriers that stood in their way. In so doing, leaflets advanced unrealistic expectations and foreshadowed the suspicion and violence that awaited women who failed to live up to them.

Much like propaganda destined for the home front, partisan leaflets often referenced Nazi atrocities against women and children, thereby depicting them as traditional victims of war. ²⁷ For example, a leaflet entitled, “The Bloody Rapists,” spoke about an alleged massacre that took place in the village of Navolok where 41 people were killed, including Maria Tsvetkova, a 70-year-old woman, and Anna Ivanova, a 35-year-old woman who was burned alive. ²⁸ Leaflets not only highlighted the murder of women and children but also instances of rape and sexual violence. For instance, the same leaflet discussed the rape and mutilation of two women whose bodies were left in a ditch in the village of Zagor´e. ²⁹

Leaflets that were specifically addressed to women and girls also highlighted such crimes. For example, a leaflet addressed “to all of the women of Luzhskii raion” from the late spring of 1942 spoke about the murder of a 60-year-old teacher from the village of Krasnye Gory who was seriously wounded in a field near her home before being shot in front of her neighbors. ³⁰ It also mentioned a mother of six from the village of Sabtsy that the “Hitlerite cannibals also shot without cause.” ³¹ While this leaflet did not discuss instances of rape and sexual violence, others mentioned such crimes. For example, a leaflet addressed to young women began by stating that “it is necessary to take vengeance for much!” ³² In addition to burning down thousands of villages

it is they [the occupiers] who brutally tormented (zamuchili) a sixteen-year-old girl, Snarskaia, in Torkovichi in Oredezhskii raion, raped the fifteen-year-old Liusiu S. in Miasnoi Bor in Novgorodskii raion, shot Tosia Bardistova in the village of Zamosh´e [in] Luzhskii raion, raped and infected three girls in the village of Novaia [in] Tosnenskii raion. ³³

The leaflet also accused German authorities of “recruiting” young women for brothels located in Liuban´, Apraksin Bor, and other occupied cities and towns. ³⁴

Much like similar stories printed in Soviet newspapers, these accounts were meant to inspire hatred towards the enemy while encouraging Soviet women and girls to resist. For example, a leaflet addressed to “Russian Girls” with a print-run of 10,000 copies from July 1942 stated that “[b]efore your eyes the Germans ruthlessly exterminate the civilian population without sparing children or the elderly. But the brutality of the German monsters should not summon tears, but a sense of sacred rage [and] furious hatred.” ³⁵ After discussing Zoia Kosmodem´ianskaya, ³⁶ arguably the most famous partizanka, and Tonia Petrova, a local partizanka who will be discussed in more detail later, the leaflet called on young women to fight the enemy. As if speaking on behalf of women in besieged Leningrad, it stated that

[t]hey fervently call on you, Russian girls: take vengeance on the German robbers who want to make our country a colony, our people—slaves, our girls—livestock, mattresses for the dirty and lice-infested Fritz. In these days of severe trial for our Motherland, for every Russian person, let every one of you ask yourself, what have I done for the Motherland, how have I helped her free herself from the bloodthirsty German occupiers? ³⁷

Although leaflets often sought to encourage civilians to defend the motherland and seek vengeance with little mention of ideology, some suggested that they should do so to protect a way of life and, by extension, Communism. Leaflets addressed broadly to all youth made a subtle defense of the system by juxtaposing the lack of opportunities on occupied territory with those that had existed before and would presumably return with Soviet power. ³⁸ Reflecting an awareness of the disappointment that most youth exhibited towards the occupation regime, such leaflets attempted to channel these feelings toward partisan recruitment. ³⁹

While most leaflets referred to Communism only indirectly, a leaflet printed on the occasion of International Women’s Day in 1943 was more overt in its call for women to defend the perceived rights that had existed in the Soviet Union. Repeating well-worn arguments from the 1930s, it began by noting that the fight for equality was waged for “entire centuries,” but the “victory of the proletarian revolution in our country opened widely the doors for women to unrestrained work, education, [and] to large-scale public life.” “Russian girl[s]” were thus “accustomed from young age to unrestricted labor, a wide education, [and] to participation in the political life of the country.” Such young women, the leaflet argued, “would not be slaves for German women!” In order to accelerate the return of Soviet power and with it their perceived equality, the leaflet called on them to “kill Germans! Do not allow them to order you around, to outrage the honor of proud Russian girls, to take you to the hell called Germany.” Rather, their place was with the partisans. It was their “holy duty, the duty of a girl, born a Russian woman on Russian land” to aid the partisans in any way possible. ⁴⁰

Leaflets advanced a variety of reasons for why women and girls should not only resist but fight the enemy. Whether to avenge the outrages committed against their loved ones or to protect a system that had granted them unprecedented educational and vocational opportunities, they were encouraged to enlist in the partisan movement. And, although, as we shall see, women were called to resist in their everyday lives as well, becoming a partizanka was often portrayed as the singular way in which they could contribute. Joining the partisans, however, was never as simple as the propaganda suggested. Not only did their familial responsibilities often prevent them from going into the forests, but even when they were able to do so many continued to encounter resistance.

Although they participated in all areas of partisan warfare, women were often marginalized to traditional roles, such as nurses and cooks. ⁴¹ They had to contend with the unwanted advances of their commanders and comrades-in-arms. ⁴² Finally, even after they were accepted, women were sometimes later deliberately left behind. ⁴³ Such callous treatment left them defenseless in the face of German reprisals and anti-partisan actions. This was particularly the case for Jewish women who had to contend with sexism and antisemitism. ⁴⁴ Of course, there were commanders and fighters who respected the contributions of women, spoke out against such practices, and punished instances of rape. ⁴⁵ Still, a significant disconnect existed between the official expectations expressed in leaflets and the real-life possibilities for women to resist. Nowhere is this more evident than in depictions of partizankas who came to epitomize female resistance. Much like the calls to arms expressed more broadly, the values partizankas allegedly embodied also reflected unrealistic expectations.

In Soviet propaganda, the military contributions of women were represented by the partizanka. Combining “male virtues like courage and strength with female ones like compassion, helpfulness, and beauty,” the partizanka represented the ideal Soviet girl. ⁴⁶ The most famous partizanka was Zoia Kosmodem´ianskaya, but there were numerous young women whose stories of resistance and self-sacrifice were told and retold throughout the war. A number of common traits united their stories from their membership in the Pioneers or the Komsomol to their fervent desire to fight. ⁴⁷ But it was their violent deaths at the hands of the enemy that catapulted them to the status of heroines. It was through death, as Anja Tippner has noted, that they were transformed into “Soviet martyrs and wartime saints.” ⁴⁸ By sacrificing themselves, they gained immortality on the pages of Soviet newspapers and magazines. Through their wartime exploits and more importantly through their deaths, they became models for the kinds of behavior and self-sacrifice that were increasingly expected of women on occupied territory.

Leaflets addressed to women and girls sometimes highlighted the contributions of partizankas in general terms while calling on their readers to follow in their footsteps. For example, one leaflet from the late spring of 1942 informed readers that “[a]mong the partisans there are a good deal of women fighting alongside men for the full destruction of the Hitlerites.” ⁴⁹ While noting that not a single unit existed which did not have young women in its ranks, another leaflet stated that there were

many young women nurses, intelligence gatherers, [and] fighters in the partisan units, who, not sparing their strength, not sparing their lives, fight for freedom, for our land, and whose deeds are a source of pride for all of the people. ⁵⁰

While such lists suggested the kinds of roles that were open to women, references to specific partizankas supplied them with concrete examples.

Antonina Vasil´evna Petrova, a native of the region, was one such partizanka. ⁵¹ Born on 14 March 1915 in the village of Streshevo, Petrova was posthumously declared a Hero of the Soviet Union on 8 April 1942. ⁵² After the war, honorary plaques in Luga, where a street was named in her honor, and in her home village reminded citizens of her wartime exploits. A school in Tolmachyovo, Leningrad oblast also carried her name. ⁵³ Still, despite these honors, virtually nothing about her life and exploits are known besides the little that was deemed valuable for propaganda purposes. ⁵⁴ According to the meager information that has survived, Petrova allegedly begged the secretary of the regional Komsomol committee to allow her to join a destruction battalion in August 1941. ⁵⁵ After joining the battalion, Petrova served as an intelligence gatherer for the unit. She is said to have “distinguished herself by [her] bold actions” in this post before she was killed on 4 November 1941 while engaging the enemy. ⁵⁶

Leaflets mentioning Petrova sometimes merely stated her name, but some focused more closely on her alleged exploits while likening her to her better-known counterparts. ⁵⁷ For example, a leaflet from July 1942 stated that “[t]he Russian people will never forget the names of their loyal daughters, Zoia Kosmodem´ianskaya and Tonia Petrova.” ⁵⁸ Readers were told that Petrova joined the partisans as an intelligence gatherer from the first days of the war and went on 150 reconnaissance missions before her death, a number that is suspect since she died in November 1941. “When, one day, the Hitlerites surrounded the partisans in the forest and wanted to imprison Tosia, she killed three Fascists and heroically died.” For her “military exploits [and] [her] heroic fight against the Hitlerite occupiers, Tosia Petrova was awarded the Hero of the Soviet Union.” ⁵⁹ Like Zoia Kosmodem´ianskaya, Antonina Petrova was lionized for her death. The exact nature of her exploits was not important. Her story was a blank canvas onto which propagandists could project the ideals the state sought to inculcate in young women, namely courage, resistance, and self-sacrifice.

Whereas descriptions of women and children suffering at the hands of the enemy were meant to mobilize civilians to action, portrayals of partizankas were meant to provide them with a how-to-guide. Leaflets distributed throughout the region called on women to follow in the footsteps of Zoia Kosmodem´ianskaya and Tonia Petrova and “[b]eat the hateful enemy everywhere [and] with all means, destroy the bloody Hitlerite monsters [and] their planes and tanks, trains and cars, blowup their roads [and] bridges, tear their communications, burn their storehouses of food and munitions!” ⁶⁰ Recalling the gender-neutral rhetoric of the 1930s, such appeals merely replaced the ubiquitous calls to “youth” with “women” and “girls” while assigning them the same tasks as men notwithstanding the societal barriers that stood in their way. ⁶¹

While enlisting with the partisans was the ideal, some leaflets did reflect a recognition that not everyone would be able to resist in this way. They suggested that women and girls could also make a difference in their everyday lives by assisting the partisans while remaining in their homes. For example, they could take inspiration from Lida G, a 16-year-old who allegedly reported the location of a German garrison and was distributing leaflets in her region. Or, they could follow in the footsteps of a “young collective farm worker” named M who, in the midst of a battle behind one of the villages in Oredezhskii raion, allegedly cut the telephone wires that German units were using to transmit commands to their mortars. ⁶² Alongside partizankas, such young women served as real-life exemplars of how others could contribute to the war effort without necessarily joining the partisans in the forests.

With women and girls expected to resist and contribute to the war effort, it was only natural that they would be admonished against actions that were perceived to aid the enemy. They were discouraged from fraternizing with enemy combatants on an everyday basis often in gender-specific terms. For example, one leaflet admonished women to

not carry out the orders of the Fritz’s and their underlings—village elders and peasant policemen! Do not wash and mend linen for the Fascist dogs, do not cook them food! Sow fields and gardens only for yourselves and not for the killers of your children and parents, brothers and sisters! ⁶³

Another called on them to “not do anything for the Hitlerite soldiers and officers: do not give them food, do not cook food, do not wash, do not mend their linen. Avoid all sorts of relations (vsiakogo obshcheniia) with Fascist soldiers and officers.” ⁶⁴ Yet another leaflet, this one addressed to all of the workers and collective farm workers in Oredezhskii raion, also singled out women, stating:

Comrade women! Do not wash lice-infested German clothes. [D]o not cook food for the Fritzes or [better yet] poison it, so that the piece of bread that was torn from your children can be the death of a foul Fascist. ⁶⁵

Notably, leaflets never called on women to cook food or wash and mend clothes for the partisans, but only mentioned this work in relation to the enemy. Because this labor was considered women’s work and remained the sole preserve of women in the Soviet Union, it was assumed that they would perform this labor for Soviet men. Such assumptions combined with admonishments for women to refrain from performing this labor on behalf of the enemy had a two-fold effect. On the one hand, such assumptions marginalized and devalued the contributions of women within the partisan movement who were often relegated to this work because it was considered “natural” and thus unremarkable. ⁶⁶ On the other hand, they raised suspicions about any woman seen performing this labor on behalf of the enemy. Specifically, such actions suggested the existence of close and perhaps intimate relations with enemy combatants. Such relations were never officially equated with treason. ⁶⁷ Still, they were likely to spark and reinforce concerns that women were “more susceptible to co-operation with the Germans.” ⁶⁸ Within this context Soviet leaflets addressed to women were meant to act as a prophylactic against the real and perceived threat of fraternization.

Admonishments against fraternization, much like the overarching calls for the kinds of resistance and self-sacrifice exhibited by partizankas, also reflected unrealistic expectations. While women could sometimes choose whether or not to host or attend gatherings where German soldiers were present, it was another matter to expect them to refuse to follow orders or to cook food and clean clothes for German soldiers who were billeted in their homes. Often alone, without the protection of their husbands or fathers, and with young children in their care, many could not refuse to follow orders. Meanwhile, conditions on occupied territory, where famine prevailed from the start, often left them with few options other than to pursue a relationship with a local collaborator or enemy combatant. The result amounted to survival prostitution whereby women exchanged sexual favors for food and other vital resources. ⁶⁹ Yet despite the difficult conditions that encouraged some women to pursue such relationships in the first place, they were expected to avoid them at all cost even if doing so deprived them and their loved ones of life-saving resources.

In 1943, the Political Administration of the Northwestern Front published a leaflet entitled, “A true story about a pure and proud maiden’s heart.” ⁷⁰ Written by long-time journalist and war correspondent, Elena Kononenko, ⁷¹ the leaflet had a print-run of 100,000 copies and detailed the attempted rape of a (likely fictional) young woman named Stesha. Described as a “proud Russian girl, a gray-eyed beauty [and] songstress,” Stesha represented the patriotic girl on occupied territory. ⁷² Whereas partizankas modeled armed female resistance, Stesha became a model for the kind of everyday resistance that was expected in the face of sexual violence and rape. Her story is worth exploring in detail for the anxieties and expectations it reveals as well as its overall message of what it meant to be courageous and to resist. It demonstrates how the tropes discussed earlier could not only advance expectations of armed resistance and self-sacrifice but also negative conclusions about the political and moral fiber of those who survived. Although likely not intended to encourage hatred and violence towards women who failed to live up to official expectations, the leaflet may have done just that by promoting comparisons between them and women like Stesha.

It began with a short character study in which Stesha was described as “a simple, merry girl who loved to dress up.” ⁷³ Kononenko noted that

[e]ven to the fields, you came a little overdressed (rasfranchennaia), as if [going] to the club for a dance. And the women laughed at the way you coquettishly let out a lock of [your] hair from under a blue kerchief. [And they] laughed that you brought a fragment of mirror with you to the kitchen gardens where the only admirer was the watchman, old-man Pankrat. ⁷⁴

Nobody begrudged her, however, because she was “not only able to sing, dance, [and] dress up, but also do the work of two [people].” ⁷⁵ While this characterization may have been simply a way of revealing her youth and allegedly carefree life, it reflected the common belief among Communist Party members and civilians more broadly that women had no “serious opinions” but were only interested in byt (everyday life). ⁷⁶ Whether Stesha’s characterization reflected this belief is not clear, but it would have made her subsequent actions all the more striking. By presenting her as someone who did not distinguish herself before the war but whose later actions suggested a hidden strength, the leaflet encouraged young women to picture themselves in her stead while suggesting that they too could undergo a similar transformation.

When war broke out and Vasia, her sweetheart, was drafted into the Red Army, Stesha did not shed a tear, a reaction that prompted accusations that she was only interested in herself. Readers were told that it was because of her apparent self-interest that “the first to be led to the [German] officers was you, the beautiful Stesha.” ⁷⁷ That evening, the newly appointed village elder came to get her in the company of a German aide-de-camp. Seeing them at their door, Stesha’s mother fell to the floor begging. But the village elder only called her a stupid old woman. The “gentlemen officers,” he assured her, would “load her [Stesha] with money.” Stesha, meanwhile, slowly began to get ready. As she went to put on her best blouse, her little brother, Vania, grabbed her by her wrist and whispered

Trash, trash, trash. You are going to go to Berlin?… You will sing songs to the Germans?… You sold out the Red Army… I… I… I will write to Vasia… Soviet power will come… ⁷⁸

Vania represented the patriotic citizen and the emasculated man, unable to defend his woman in the face of Nazi aggression. Powerless to prevent his sister from being taken, he lashed out and accused her of betraying him, the Red Army, and the motherland. While this moment may suggest that Kononenko sympathized with his sentiments, Stesha’s response demonstrates that this was not the case. Calling him a “whelp,” an epithet that signaled not only his youth but also his naivety, Stesha, and through her, Kononenko, rebuked Soviet citizens for their rashness to judge. Rather than going willingly, Stesha said that “I will be led with a gun.” ⁷⁹ Thus, Kononenko highlighted the limited choices women had at their disposal and their relative powerlessness under occupation.

After changing her clothes and hiding her fragment of mirror, Stesha followed the village elder to his hut. There, she encountered a scene of decadence calculated to provoke hatred in readers. Stesha first saw his

wife, who was carrying a dish with amber pieces of meat in aspic, officers, who were drinking cognac from green shot glasses, [and] a table that was covered in a cross-stitched tablecloth on which were heaped unopened chocolate bars and colorfully wrapped chocolates. ⁸⁰

In the midst of this excess, Stesha saw Aglaia, the elder’s niece, who was “gnawing chocolate with her small teeth” as a “Fritz-officer wound a gramophone” by her side. ⁸¹ Seeing Stesha, Aglaia paled, a reaction that, when coupled with the overall scene, was meant to suggest that she was there under different circumstances. Unlike Stesha, who was supposed to evoke sympathy, Aglaia was portrayed as a willing collaborator who had sold herself for chocolate. Indeed, the mention of chocolate and a gramophone reflected Soviet anxieties about the relative susceptibility of young women to German recruitment. For example, even as late as January 1944, a Komsomol report noted that “through fraternization, marriages, and by organizing casinos, balls and dances, the Germans seek to conquer young women politically on a personal basis, encouraging a vested interest in a German victory.” ⁸² By placing Aglaia in such an environment without providing any context for her actions, Kononenko suggested that she had already been “conquered.”

Stesha was dragged into an adjoining room where she came face-to-face with the commanding officer. Readers were told that he had “torn to pieces fifteen of your countrymen, shot them over the course of these two days, and, having been satiated with blood, wanted love and song.” ⁸³ From the description of his atrocities to his “cognac-soaked whiskers,” everything was calculated to provoke revulsion and a desire for revenge. Stesha sat beside him as he poured her wine and grabbed her by her shoulders. But, just as readers are led to believe that he is about to rape her, Stesha retrieves her hidden fragment of mirror and strikes him. His attempt to buy her cooperation, we are told, has failed.

The rest of Stesha’s story followed the template of the martyred partizanka. The villagers next saw her by the “old lime trees under which she had danced in the spring with Vasia.” ⁸⁴ She had been “shot, beaten, [and] bespattered with spittle…”

What they did to you, these hounds, murderers, nobody knows. Your face was disfigured. A blue knot of muscle closed your left eye, but your right, still clean and clear as spring water, looked out at the people and in it, almost like a drop of hot resin, a tear had frozen. They say that you lost your mind from the tortures and torment. But when the machine gunners trained the black muzzles at you, you roused yourself and plaintively yelled: ‘Vasia!’ And then you passionately began to speak: ‘Comrade-girls… I did not sell my honor to the German-Fascist. I did not caress the damned enemies. Comrade-girls, I did not sing, I did not dance for him. ⁸⁵

Her words drove home the message of her story. Dancing, singing, spending time with enemy combatants or receiving gifts from them were all acts of betrayal. The circumstances did not matter. Any woman who behaved in this way was thought to be selling herself and, by extension, the motherland. In this context, every woman represented the motherland. ⁸⁶ She was responsible for not only protecting her honor and avenging her sisters but also for protecting and avenging the honor of the motherland. Meanwhile, every rape recalled the state of the Soviet Union in the summer and fall of 1941. Faced with the possibility of being raped, Soviet women and girls were supposed to choose the fate of Red Army soldiers. They were expected to die protecting their, i.e. the motherland’s, honor. With this being the expectation in cases of rape, it went without saying that women were supposed to choose death rather than accommodation with the enemy.

Although Stesha’s story contained a certain level of nuance in that Kononenko underscored the fact that many women were forced to have such relations in the first place, it nevertheless advanced a hierarchy of behavior that privileged resistance and death. The weakest were women like Aglaia who allegedly sold themselves and, by extension, the motherland. By failing to provide any context for her behavior, Kononenko negated the complex factors that may have motivated her actions. Aglaia is condemned and shown to be worthy of contempt simply for being present and accepting the chocolate. The strongest women, in contrast, were those who were able to transcend their youth and make the choice to resist to the death. This suggested that all women and girls were capable of making such a choice, a choice that they were inherently expected to make without any consideration for their families or their lives. By elevating and celebrating the deadly sacrifices of partizankas and civilian women who were seemingly ready to lay down their lives for the motherland, leaflets suggested that survival was a sign of weakness. With death considered the greatest sign of moral and political strength, any woman who refused to make a similar choice or, worse, who survived the occupation by taking life into her own hands, was suspect.

Stesha’s story was likely a product of the Komsomol campaign that, beginning in 1943, sought to encourage women’s participation in the partisan movement. As part of this propaganda campaign, Soviet planes dropped leaflets behind enemy lines which specifically targeted women with “appeals from family members, partisan commanders and ‘militant young women’” while urging “‘merciless struggle against the German occupiers.’” Much like the leaflets discussed above, these appeals were paired with “veiled” threats that “fraternization could bring the ultimate penalty.” ⁸⁷ It is not clear how effective Soviet leaflets were in winning the hearts and minds of women on occupied territory, especially given the clear disconnect that existed between official expectations and lived experience. Still, it is likely that activists and Communist Party and Komsomol members did find them compelling. As for everyone else, the combination of German occupation policies and Soviet victories beginning with Stalingrad were likely far more convincing than anything found in leaflets. Still, even if patriotic appeals alone did little to encourage women to enlist with the partisans and sacrifice themselves, they did successfully convey what was expected of them.

Indeed, it is no coincidence that many girls, who had previously either worked for or lived with German officers, flocked to the partisans after Stalingrad. ⁸⁸ Having either read the leaflets or heard about their contents from the rumors that were deliberately spread by Soviet activists and partisan agitators, they knew that their actions would be considered a sign of moral and political weakness and they worried about the fate that awaited them. ⁸⁹ When the Central Committee sent representatives to 11 newly liberated areas of the Soviet Union in late 1943, the questions civilians posed reflected these concerns. For example, civilians asked how they should “consider a woman whose husband serves in the Red Army and who married a German during the occupation?” and “[w]hat will happen to a woman who freely married a German soldier?” ⁹⁰ As late as the summer of 1944, civilians in Rostov oblast worried about what “actions will be taken against a woman who gave birth to a child from the occupier” as well as the subsequent fate of the child. ⁹¹ Clearly, civilians on occupied territory were familiar with official expectations whether or not they necessarily agreed with them. It remains to be seen whether this was a direct result of leaflets, the work of partisan agitators, or some combination of the two. Still, it is evident that they knew what was expected of them and worried about what would happen to those that had failed to act accordingly.

As elsewhere in German-occupied Europe, the post-liberation “cleansing began in a context of anger and haste” that often coincided with the discovery of Nazi crimes. ⁹² While much of this anger focused on members of local auxiliary detachments and collaborationist organizations, anecdotal evidence suggests that women may have been violently targeted as well. In his work on the Donbass region of Ukraine, Hiroaki Kuromiya has noted that “women who had borne children to Germans were murdered by the secret police along with their children” in towns such as Slov´ians´k, Kramators´k, and Konstiantynivka. ⁹³ German officials, meanwhile, claimed that there were women among the 4000 inhabitants of Kharkiv that were allegedly killed by the NKVD when Soviet forces temporarily retook the city in the spring of 1943. ⁹⁴ It is not clear how widespread such reprisals were or if they were merely the subject of rumor. Still, some women seem to have been so frightened that they took the lives of their children, who were fathered by German soldiers, in order to prove their loyalty. ⁹⁵

Although no instances of the kinds of public shaming rituals that occurred in post-liberation France ⁹⁶ have been recorded in the case of the Soviet Union, Soviet women were nevertheless condemned on an individual basis. ⁹⁷ Alleged fraternizers were universally ridiculed as “German mattresses” (nemetskie podstilki) or “German sluts,” while their children branded “little fascists.” ⁹⁸ Red Army soldiers largely expected women to have remained faithful and to have awaited their return regardless of their circumstances. Notwithstanding their own wartime indiscretions or the complicated factors that encouraged their partners to pursue relations with enemy combatants, many soldiers could not forgive their wives and girlfriends. Thus, when a new Family Law was promulgated in 1944, one of the most common reasons cited for divorce became either de facto marriage or infidelity. ⁹⁹ According to Mie Nikachi, condemnation was strongest when fraternization with the enemy was suspected. ¹⁰⁰ It is not hard to imagine the personal tragedies that these expectations encouraged. However, the potential for violence did not stop there because such real and perceived relationships were often cause for concern for Soviet secret police organs for whom they were thought to signal enemy recruitment.

In his work on the military tribunals responsible for adjudicating cases of wartime treason, Aleksandr Epifanov found evidence that women were detained and arrested on little more than suspicion of fraternization. For example, he noted the case of I.V. Sazonchikova, who was arrested on 16 January 1942 for having a criminal relationship with employees of the Gestapo. Although an NKVD investigation found that she did not betray any Soviet citizens, but simply washed clothes and cooked dinner for the men quartered in her home, Sazonchikova was sentenced to three years in the Gulag as a “socially dangerous element.” ¹⁰¹ Similarly, in her work on Kalinin oblast, Vanessa Voisin documented the case of three women who were denounced and later convicted as “socially dangerous elements” for maintaining relations with German officers. ¹⁰² It is not known how many women were among the estimated 500,000 Soviet citizens that were tried for treason during and immediately after the war. ¹⁰³ However, these cases suggest that the anxieties imbedded in the leaflets reflected and may have even reinforced suspicions that “weak” women in close contact with the enemy were vulnerable to enemy recruitment. After all, the very actions of which Sazonchikova was found guilty were those that leaflets admonished women against.

In her 1943 novella, Tecza (The Rainbow), Wanda Wasilewska described a village under German occupation and the actions of its predominantly female population for Soviet readers. ¹⁰⁴ Olena, an older partizanka, acted true to form as she endured torture and sacrificed herself and her newborn rather than betray her unit. In contrast, a woman named Pusya was said to have “betrayed her country, her kith and kin, [and] her own husband, a commander in the Red Army” for “silk stockings and French wine.” ¹⁰⁵ Having heard nothing from him for five months, Pusya found a German lover. Her actions, according to Wasilewska, were prompted neither by need nor circumstance, but rather by her animal-like nature and selfishness. Shown to be worthy of little more than contempt, Pusya is ultimately killed by her husband when he returns to liberate the village at the head of a Red Army unit.

The gray area between the polar opposites portrayed by Olena and Pusya was represented by a Stesha-like character named Malasha. In the novella, Malasha, the prettiest girl in the village, is gang raped and impregnated by her attackers. Afterward, she muses that “everything could be avenged…the razed cottages and the murdered children, but no one could ever avenge her.” She is “dishonored” and “branded with the mark of indelible disgrace” and she “would forever remain what she had become, a wretched outcast to whom all roads were closed.” ¹⁰⁶ Malasha was innocent of any wrong-doing. Still, Wasilewska suggested that she had been tainted. It was only by fighting alongside the Red Army soldiers who came to liberate the village that Malasha was able to avenge herself, thereby earning a hero’s burial.

The types depicted in Wasilewska’s novella recreated for Soviet readers the tropes and expectations articulated in leaflets. The strongest women were those who chose to selflessly resist to the death, but even women who were somehow tainted by the occupation could be cleansed through armed resistance. Only women like Pusya, who survived the occupation on their own terms, were irredeemable. Pusya’s fate points to the violence that awaited Soviet women after liberation and which was only hinted at in leaflets that admonished them against fraternization. Their actions were thought to be a reflection of their inner souls. And, while some would merely face suspicion, others would be purged from the collective as “socially dangerous elements” for their alleged failures.

Wasilewska's novella was adapted into a movie, which was released in 1944. But, in what may have been a sign of changing times and expectations, Malasha's character was omitted. With the Red Army fighting in Eastern Europe and the end of the war fast approaching, the state no longer needed women to sacrifice themselves on the frontlines. Instead, they were increasingly encouraged to return to work and the family, their wartime contributions soon to be denigrated and forgotten. ¹⁰⁷ But not so the supposed taint of occupation. For most civilians, the violence of occupation did not end with liberation. Since officials continued to view anyone who had remained on occupied territory with suspicion, civilians were forced to answer for their real and alleged behavior for decades after the war. Thus, not only did women, like Malasha, have to live with the traumas of war, but they also had to live with the suspicion that their survival was perhaps a sign of a moral and political weakness that they had displayed during the war.