Political and Civilian History of the Great Patriotic War

Civil and Political Events During The Great Patriotic War
(1941-1945)

A historical overview of the political and civilian
events during 1941-1945

This section will give a brief history of the civil and political events that took place throughout the USSR during the years of the Great Patriotic War. We later plan on discussing these events in detail. The Soviet leader of the period will also be profiled at a later time.

Soviet Leaders (1941-1945)		Political & Civil Events Historical Index
Joseph Stalin 1924-1953		1941 1942 1943 1944 1945

Timeline 1941-1945

1941
	13 April	Stalin signs non-agression pact with Japan.
	22 June	German invasion of the Soviet Union.
	23 June	Hungary and Slovakia join Germany in declaring war on the Soviet Union.
	26 June	Finland declares war on the USSR.
	29 June	Stalin, Malenkov, Voroshilov, and Beria form Defense Committee.
	12 July	The Soviets sign a mutual assistance pact with England against Nazi Germany.
	7 August	Josef Stalin names himself the supreme leader of the USSR.
	25 August	Soviet and British forces enter Persia to keep them from joining with the Axis powers.
	1 September	Mass deportations of Volga Germans begins.
	16 October	Elements of the Soviet government leave Moscow for Kuybyshev.
1942
	20 February	United States grants the Soviet Union a one billion dollar loan.
	5 April	Congress of Slavic Peoples is held in Moscow.
		Winston Churchill visits Moscow. The Lend-Lease program is in full operation between US and USSR.
	-	Stalin is again named 'Time Magazine's Man of the Year'.
1943
	January	V. I. Kurchakov is directed by Central Committee of USSR to organize a new scientific establishment in Moscow to study 'uranium based weapons'.
		German 6th Army surrenders in Stalingrad.
	13 April	German forces discover the bodies of 4,143 Polish soldiers executed at Katyn.
		ComIntern is dissolved.
	October	Sergius becomes Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church.
	19 October	The Moscow Conference of Foreign Ministers began with the primary goal of improving allied relations with the Soviet Union.
	October	Second Moscow Congress is held.
	28 November	Teheran Conference is held in Iran. It is the first meeting between Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin. Together they plan the future course of the war and the design of the post-war world.
1944
	26 January	Soviets issue their report on the Katyn Forest massacres.
	11 May	An order banishing the entire Tartar population of the Crimea to Siberia is signed.
	21 August	Soviet representatives meet with officials from the United States, China, and England near Washington to plan for the creation of the United Nations.
	22 August	The Russian dancer and choreographer, Michel Fokine died at the age of 62. He was a great influence on classical ballet.
	20 September	Soviet Union and Finland sign a provisional peace treaty.
	9 October	Winston Churchill and Stalin meet at the Third Moscow Conference.
	19 October	Third Moscow Conference ends.
	13 December	The Russian abstract artist Vasily Kandinsky died. He had left the Soviet Union in 1921.
1945
	4-14 February	Stalin attends the Yalta Conference in the Crimea.
	May	Vienna and Berlin are taken by Soviet forces.
	17 July - 2 August	The Potsdam Conference is held (Stalin, Attlee, and Truman attend).
	24 July	Eisenstein wins the Stalin Prize for his Ivan the Terrible, Part I.
	8 August	Soviet Union declares war on Japan and invades Manchuria.
	14 August	Japan accepts the Allied terms of unconditional surrender, ending World War Two.
	2 September	Japan signs surrender document and the Second World War ends.

Statistics of the Russia (1941)
• Population: 170 million • Average Worker Pay: ___ • Literacy: ___ • Urban Population: __ • Economic Growth Rate __

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