How close was the Soviet Union to Collapse in 1942-1943?

The Axis had overrun much of the western Soviet Union In 1942. And going off the available evidence, it appears that their economy was on the brink of collapse.

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ABOUT TIK

History isn’t as boring as some people think, and my goal is to get people talking about it. I also want to dispel the myths and distortions that ruin our perception of the past by asking a simple question - “But is this really the case?”. I have a 2:1 Degree in History and a passion for early 20th Century conflicts (mainly WW2). I’m therefore approaching this like I would an academic essay. Lots of sources, quotes, references and so on. Only the truth will do.

This video is discussing events or concepts that are academic, educational and historical in nature. This video is for informational purposes and was created so we may better understand the past and learn from the mistakes others have made.

[GeographyCzar]

It sucks to fight a war on your own soil - a fact most Americans have forgotten.

[alexfilma]

In Soviet Russia, economy collapses you.

[kizatov]

During WW2 my grandmother lived in the eastern part of Kazakhstan (back then part of USSR), and she tells that the only thing that kept her family alive was potato trims made by shovels, that were left over i the soil after the potato had been gathered. They were searhing fields for those potato trims after the crops were gathered (and shipped elsewhere).

[mikeltelleria]

1942: "they were starving, eating 1000 calories less than americans"
2019: "they were morbidly obese, eating 1000 calories less than americans"

[jouniosmala]

Rye bred is quite good. In Finland the deault bred is Rye Bred. Bark bread, which is made from mixture of Rye and phloem of pine tree on the other hand is anti-starvation method. The "edible" portion of pine tree is about 4kg per cubic meter of wood. And Finnish sources, tell that it has been used in Finland, Scandinavia and Northern Russia historically in famine situations. And the people who make said bread on modern days tell that traditional 40% pine and 60% rye, however to avoid side effects modern use is limited to 25% or below. And to have acceptable taste it is limited to about 10-12% . Just like some mushrooms need processing before becoming edible so does the phloem of pine tree. And by processed I don't mean modern processing but methods used more than 1000 years.

[zosimus.i]

Now about starvation during the war. My father at that time was about 18 or so . He never liked to talk about that time. However, once he mentioned that "he was lucky to have a hunting rifle, unlike many other families". He would shoot everything that flew around to feed his family. Also, they would go out to the wheat fields next to them to pick up whatever left after the harvest.
And still, he said that they lived much better then other people up north in Siberia and in Ukraine - We lived in the southern part of Kazakhstan. My father was drafted to the war in 1944 and later stormed Berlin. He also, often mentioned about Lendlease too. The best things he liked were American can food and Studebaker truck!

[baedling]

12:45 "The Soviets survived on far less food than all of the combatant nations except the Japanese..."

*ghostly wails in Chinese and Bengali*

[AFGuidesHD]

What are the implications of a economic collapse ? All the soldiers just pack their bags and go home?

What would it actually look like ?

[squamish]

I always suspected the Soviet Union was much harder pressed in 1942 than many historians realized. The defeats in 1941 had been so staggering, and so much agricultural land had been lost, and the idea that industry had been neatly picked up and planted beyond the Urals sounded so unlikely, that the idea that it held fast and resumed with vigour in 1942 seemed off.

[jimmarch]

My father as a child of 10 and 11 lived in one of the cities under strong attack during World War 2. In the late 1970s he and I were in a grocery store in the US and I happened to see rabbit meat packaged in the meat section. I pointed it out and he was visibly disturbed, noting you cannot tell cat meat from rabbit. He later explained it during the war he ate a whole lot of rabbit that in fact actually should have been purring.

He wasn't in Moscow. He was in London.

[nikolaynovichkov]

My grandma, Nina Alexeevna Loginova, was 14 in 1941, living in a village in Ivanovo oblast. She had to work at a collective farm, replacing men left for the front, while still attending school, that is, from morning till night, all four years till 1945, without holidays (not sure, maybe on 1 May and 7 November they had holidays). She would say the food situation was generally alright for them (probably alright by her standards of the day, not ours) during the first years, but it worsened by 1945. Then, she would say, things were starting to look grim: they weren't exactly starving, but were not very far away from that. The hardest thing, however, she said (and it adds another dimension to the discussion about the fall in agricultural productivity) was the lack of horses and tractors: all were taken for the needs of the front, they had to rely on oxen. I remember her talking about it: "A horse is a clever animal", she would say, "you tell it to go somewhere, it goes there. But an ox is stupid and stubborn: you need it to pull the plough, and it just lies there on the field and refuses to stand up. You beat it with a stick, but it just doesn't care" (and we're talking a teenage girl beating an ox with a stick, mind you) "Then you fall down on your knees, hug its neck and start begging: come on, dear, please, stand up, please, just stand up now — and it still doesn't". And in many places they didn't even have oxen and the peasant women had to pull the plough themselves.

She's still alive btw, 93 years old now. This was a tough year for her though: she had her arm broken, but it's getting better now.

P. S.: I, as a Russian, am deeply insulted for your disdain for rye bread. I honestly don't understand what your problem with rye bread is, how is it any worse than wheat bread? Puzzles me.

[zosimus.i]

The word you are trying to pronounce is actually pronounced as "SevUralLag". The "lag" part of it is a short for Russian word "lager" which means "camp". The whole word is a contraction and consists of three words: Severniy (Northen) Yralskiy (Ural) and Lager (Camp). In a nutshell, it was named so since the camp was located in the northern part of the Ural Mounten region. Many, if not all of the Gulag camp names, usually ended with "lag", for instance, KarLag (a camp in Karaganda region of Kazakhstan with about one million inmates) and so on.
I was born in the former USSR and lived there for more than 35 years before immigrating to the US in 1992. I would be happy to help you guys with any Russian translations/explanations etc. John

[airpaprika]

this is the best history channel on YouTube

[kaloyankatzarov]

“They were eating rye bread, yeah.”

...thee have made an enemy today.

[jalilsalomon]

You see comrade, right now there are too many mouths to feed. But what if! there were only half as many mouths to feed?!

[Shachza]

"The overwhelming majority of those remaining in the gulag were ill, EMANCIPATED, and infirm." lol That little slip changes the whole feel the gulag segment in morbidly funny ways.

[matthewlee]

Most people getting ready to work out: "Ah, play the pop tunes."
Me: "Oh hey a video about the collapse of the Soviet Union. Perfect jogging material!"

[danielivgi]

Hi, love the show.
The Soviet lost a lot of there food production capabilities at this point, but also it no longer needed too feed the same amount of people as in 1937 as a lot of the population was in German occupied areas, under siege or dead. So using the 1937 production quota of food doset mean they where eating 50% less. What do you think about that?

[ambersmith]

After watching your review of this collapse topic I’m even more mystified at the will of the Soviet people to keep fighting. The shortages and starvation didn’t break the common soldiers fighting spirit. Much is said about “not one step back” crap but how did the morale not break down completely? Who were these people who stood at such a precipice and didn’t break? This goes deeper than fear of the state or enemy. Something unique occurred and may never happen again.

[billbolton]

Interesting, the Soviet farming industry had a great reduction in output after the Nazi invasion, but as TIK pointed out in his previous video there was also a very large reduction in population in Soviet territories so much so that their population fell below the overall Axis population. Giving agricultural production as a percentage of prewar figures is only half the story as there was less mouths to feed.