H November came. The dry, clear days of October gave way to overcast, cold days with heavy snowfall. The ground was covered with a thick layer of snow, snowdrifts formed on the streets and avenues. A frosty wind drove snow dust into the cracks of dugouts, dugouts, into the broken windows of apartments, hospitals, and shops. Winter set in early, snowy and frosty. The movement of urban transport decreased every day, the fuel was coming to an end, the life of enterprises froze. Workers and employees who lived in remote areas of the city went to work on foot for several kilometers, making their way through deep snow from one end of the city to the other. At the end of the working day, tired, they barely made it home. Here, for a short time, they could throw off their clothes and lie down, stretching out their tired, heavy legs. Despite the cold, sleep came instantly, but was constantly interrupted due to cramps in the legs or overworked hands. In the morning, people got up with difficulty: the night did not strengthen their strength, did not expel fatigue from the body. When you get tired from an excessive but short-term effort, the fatigue disappears overnight, but there was fatigue from the daily depletion of physical energy. And now the working day comes again, the muscles of the arms, legs, neck, heart take on the load. The brain is working hard. Expenditures of forces increased, and nutrition deteriorated. The lack of food, the onset of cold and constant nervous tension exhausted the workers. Jokes, laughter disappeared, faces became preoccupied, stern. People weakened, moved slowly, often rested. The red-cheeked man could only be encountered as a curiosity, and he was looked at with surprise and ambiguity. If just a few days ago the whistle and explosions of shells excited the nervous system and made us wary, then at the time described, few people paid attention to the explosions of shells. The thunderous sounds of gunfire sounded like a distant, aimless hoarse bark. People are deeply immersed in their unhappy thoughts.
53 days have passed since the beginning of the blockade. Severe savings in spending and a small delivery of bread across the lake made it possible to save on November 1 small remnants of food: flour for 15 days, cereals for 16, sugar for 30, fat for 22 days and very little meat. The supply of meat products was carried out mainly due to the fact that it was possible to deliver by plane. Everyone understood that there was little food left, as the distribution rates were reduced, but only seven people in the whole city knew the true situation. The receipt of products by waterway, by air and later by ice road was taken into account and summarized by two specially assigned workers. A strictly limited circle of people had information about the receipt and availability of food, and this made it possible to keep the secret of the besieged fortress.
The eve of the 24th anniversary of the October Revolution has come. How much joyful fuss usually happened that evening! Streets, houses are flooded with light, shop windows caress the eye with their decoration and abundance of goods. Apples, red tomatoes, fat turkeys, prunes and many other equally tasty dishes attracted buyers. Everywhere there was a lively trade. Each family was preparing to spend holidays with friends. Noisy joy was shown by the children, excited by the general revival, forthcoming gifts, theatrical performances. In the same memorable year of 1941, the people of Leningrad were deprived of their joys: cold, darkness, and a feeling of hunger did not leave them for a minute. Empty shelves in stores made people sad, turning into a nagging pain in the chest. The holiday was celebrated by giving children 200 grams of sour cream and 100 grams of potato flour, and adults - five pieces of salted tomatoes. Nothing else was found.
On the night of November 7, the enemy decided to present a “gift” to the revolutionary city: heavy bombers, breaking through at high altitude, randomly dropped tons of bombs, some of them fell on houses with a heartbreaking howl, turning them into piles of ruins. A lot of bombs exploded at the bottom of the Neva, shaking the majestic buildings located on the embankment, and even more bombs went deep into the ground without exploding.
At that time, the technique for disarming unexploded bombs was imperfect. They dug them out with shovels, then workers descended into the pits to these shrews, ready to explode at any moment, and began to saw off the fuses in order to defuse the bombs. 20-30 minutes passed, and the threat of explosions was eliminated. But what minutes! How much strength and nervous tension they demanded from these stern fighters who performed a terrible but noble task. There were also cases when bombs exploded and smashed their tamers to shreds. However, the strength of the spirit, the holy faith in the triumph of life did not leave the patriots. They fearlessly continued the feat of their dead comrades. In the detachments of these humble heroes there were many Komsomol girls, some of them defusing bombs 20-30 times. Each time, watching their fights with thousand-kilogram bombs, it was thought that there would not be enough time, and even the strength of these young patriots, to open the iron case and defuse the bomb. But the strength was enough. Pupils of the Leninist Komsomol during the years of severe trials showed what they are capable of in the name of the Motherland.
Events more severe in their consequences took place on the second day of the 24th anniversary of the October Revolution. On November 8, enemy motorized units captured the city of Tikhvin, located 80 kilometers east of Volkhov. The corps commander Schmidt, using the mobility of the troops entrusted to him, defiantly penetrated our defenses to a great depth with a roundabout movement, exposing his flanks and putting at risk the communications that connected the troops of the 39th Corps, which had far detached themselves from the main forces. It can be assumed that the capture of Tikhvin on November 8 was dictated more by political considerations than by the military readiness of the Germans to carry out this operation and consolidate its results.
As is known, in September the fascist German army could not capture Leningrad by force of arms. Then Hitler proclaimed a new plan - to take the city by famine; he looked upon famine as his best ally in the destruction of the population. His propaganda apparatus seized upon this anchor of saving the prestige of the army with great noise, importunately hammering this idea into the heads of the German people and all the faithful outside of Germany.
Days and weeks passed, and the city did not give up. And then Hitler's headquarters resolutely demanded that the commander of the Nord group move east and cut the last path connecting the besieged with the country. Schmidt managed to push back the defenders and capture the important railway station Tikhvin. Immediately, the German newspapers, radio, official reports began to diligently fan this victory. "Now Leningrad will be forced to surrender without shedding the blood of German soldiers," the German press reported. Agitated public opinion in all countries awaited major events - the fall from day to day of the stronghold of the Bolsheviks.
Another corpse is sent to the cemetery. About the first blockade winter, when
many died of starvation, one eyewitness wrote: “During the worst period of the blockade
Leningrad was in the power of cannibals. God only knows what
horrors were happening outside the walls of the apartments.
Be that as it may, the Nazis acted for political reasons or for military calculation, but they managed to strike at a very sensitive place. The loss of Tikhvin brought a lot of trouble to the defenders, and above all in providing the troops and the population with food, fuel, and ammunition. The message about the capture by the enemy of this small town, lost in the forests of the Leningrad region, has not yet been published, and the rumor, as if driven by the wind, was transmitted from one to another, causing unrest, concern, and unclear ideas among the besieged about how the necessary for life and struggle, loads, how long will the remaining reserves last. And there were deep reasons for this concern. There was very little bread left, and after the loss of Tikhvin, trains with provisions from the depths of Russia began to arrive at the small Zaborye station, 160 kilometers away from Volkhov, which can only be reached by country and forest trails on horseback. In order to transport goods by motor vehicles from the Zaborye station, it was necessary to build a road over 200 kilometers long, bypassing Tikhvin through the forest thicket, and the whole way to Osinovets was more than 320 kilometers. A lot of effort and time was required to build such a long road, in addition, there were great fears that the new "route" in terms of its capacity would not be able to provide the population and troops with food even according to the most hungry standards. And yet, despite sober calculations that the construction of such a road would do little to alleviate the situation of the besieged, despite the forthcoming torment with the transportation of goods along it, the defenders needed the road just like oxygen to a person. Shortly after the loss of Tikhvin, the Military Council decided to build a road along the route: Osinovets - Lednevo - Novaya Ladoga - Karpino - Yamskoye - Novinka - Eremina Gora - Shugozero - Nikulskoye - Lakhta - Veliky Dvor - Serebryanskaya - Fence with a round-trip freight turnover of 2 thousand tons per day, with the opening of a front-line transshipment base in Zaborye. The construction was entrusted to the rear military units and collective farmers of the adjacent villages.
The construction of the road inspired, although weak, but still hope for the supply of food and other essential goods after the construction of the road was completed. The term for the construction of the road was determined at 15 days, while the stocks of food in Leningrad and Novaya Ladoga on November 9 were:
| Flour for 24 days, from | them in | New | Ladoga | on the | 17 days |
| Cereals for 18 days | " | " | " | " | 10 days |
| Fat for 17 days | " | " | " | " | 3 days |
| Meat products for 9 days | " | " | " | 9 days | |
| Sahara for 22 days | |||||
In addition to these supplies, a small amount of meat, fats and other most nutritious foods were delivered by aircraft.
Despite the extremely small remnants, it would be possible to live until the scheduled opening date of the road under construction, without reducing the allowances for the population and troops. But, unfortunately, two-thirds of the flour reserves and more than half of the cereals were located behind the lake, which at that time began to be covered in small places with thin ice. Only ships of the military flotilla made their way across the lake with difficulty, they transported ammunition, which they were in dire need of, and some food. The weather forecast predicted a drop in temperature in five or six days, but it was impossible to determine the day the movement on the ice began. The situation demanded to reduce food consumption immediately. The Military Council, having discussed the situation, decided to reduce the rations for the distribution of bread and meat to all personnel of the troops and sailors of the Baltic Fleet, and not to reduce rations for the civilian population.
In making this decision, the Military Council proceeded from the following:
a) the inhabitants of the city already received a meager norm, and a further decrease in it would have a detrimental effect on their health;
b) the soldiers and sailors of the first line received 800 grams of bread each, and the soldiers of the rear units received 600 grams each and good welding, therefore, reducing the ration will not affect their physical condition so much;
c) the resulting savings from the reduction in rations for the military will allow them to extend the remnants of bread and live until the winter road across the lake is established.
So they thought, expected and hoped.
Fish was completely excluded from the allowances, it was not available, and it was not possible to replace it with other products. Canned fish and crab were counted instead of meat in equal weight. Potatoes and vegetables were replaced with cereals at the rate of 10 grams of cereals per 100 grams of vegetables.
The military councils of the armies, commanders and commissars of formations, units and institutions were charged with the duty to establish the strictest control over the expenditure of products, not even allowing individual facts of increasing the allowances in the rear and second echelons by overeating the first line fighters. Violators were ordered to be brought to justice.
Five days passed, the air temperature dropped to 6-7 degrees, but the waters of Ladoga did not succumb to these frosts, the winter road on the lake was not established, and no one could help the passionate desire of the Leningraders to forge the lake with reliable ice. All the hopes and calculations of the Military Council collapsed. The bread was running out. Time began to work against the besieged. No matter how hard and painful it was, we had to reduce the distribution of bread to the population as well. From November 13, workers were given 300 grams of bread per day, employees, dependents and children under 12 years old - 150 grams each, personnel of paramilitary guards, fire brigades, extermination squads, vocational schools and schools of the FZO, who were on boiler allowance - 300 grams.
This measure made it possible to increase the daily consumption of flour to 622 tons. However, even at this low level of consumption, only a few days lasted. The lake was stormy, strong winds drove waves ashore, fragile ice broke. It was clear that in such weather, food from Novaya Ladoga would not arrive soon, and stocks were running out.
In order to prevent a complete cessation of the distribution of bread and prevent paralysis of the city, seven days after the last reduction, the Military Council reduces the norms for the third time in November. From November 20, workers began to receive 250 grams of bread per day, employees, dependents and children - 125, first-line troops - 500, rear units - 300 grams. Now the daily consumption of flour (together with impurities) was 510 tons, that is, it was the lowest for the entire time of the blockade. For a population of 2.5 million people, only 30 wagons of flour were consumed, but even for them they had to fight fiercely with the enemy and the elements.
Bread was almost the only food during this time. The cut in rations by more than one-third in a short time had a detrimental effect on people's health. Workers, employees and especially dependents began to experience acute hunger. Men and women faded in front of each other, moved slowly, spoke quietly, their internal organs were destroyed. Life left the exhausted body. These days, death stretched out in all its ugly growth and alerted, ready to mow down the masses of people approaching its path, regardless of gender or age.
Even now, when sixteen years have passed since then, it is difficult to understand how people could endure such a long acute famine. But the truth remains undeniable - Leningraders found the strength to resist and save the city.
For 107 days of blockade (on December 25), the daily consumption of flour was reduced by more than four times, with an almost unchanged number of inhabitants.
Flour consumption per day for periods was as follows (in tons) [The figures for flour consumption for the indicated periods are given from the decisions of the Military Council of the Lenfront No. 267, 320, 350, 387, 396, 409 for 1941.]:
| With | the beginning of the blockade | on | 11 | September | 2100 | ||
| " | 11 | September | " | 16 | " | 1300 | |
| " | 16 | " | " | 1 | October | 1100 | |
| " | 1 | October | " | 26 | " | 1000 | |
| " | 26 | " | " | 1 | november | 880 | |
| " | 1 | november | " | 13 | " | 735 | |
| " | 13 | " | " | 20 | " | 622 | |
| " | 20 | " | " | 25 | December | 510 | |
Figures, like pictures, are perceived differently. Sometimes a cursory glance is enough to understand them, but more often it takes time to fully and deeply comprehend them. In this case, the given figures show the extreme unevenness of bread consumption over the periods and the possibility of avoiding a reduction in the bread ration from November 20th.
In view of the extremely limited stocks of flour in November, it turned out to be impossible to maintain the consumption level of 622 tons per day, and on November 20 the bread rations for both the civilian population and the troops had to be reduced, bringing the ration to 125 grams for the majority of citizens. After that, the consumption of flour, as already mentioned, amounted to 510 tons, or 112 tons less per day. For 34 days (from November 20 to December 25), the demand was reduced by 3808 tons. In September, however, as can be seen from the above data, it was possible to save the same amount of flour in five days by taking measures for a more economical use of products not from September 11th, but from September 5th. But such a measure was not implemented at the beginning of September for the reasons stated above. Of course, one must also take into account the fact that at the time when the enemy was pounding on the door, it was difficult to calculate and foresee what a five-day saving of food in September could bring to the population of the city in November.
The norms for the sale of meat and cereals, which were reduced in September, and in November for sugar and confectionery, did not change until 1942, while the daily consumption of these products was decreasing all the time, as can be seen from the following data:
Daily consumption limit in (tonnes) [Without Lenfront and KBF.]
This reduction was achieved by limiting the supply of products to the public catering network in excess of the norms due on cards. For example, if in September, out of 146 tons of total meat consumption, 50 tons were allocated to canteens, that is, workers received food in addition to rations, then in December only 10 tons were released for these purposes for canteens of the most important defense enterprises. The situation was the same for other products. In essence, with a few exceptions, a 100% offset was introduced for all products received in canteens in the form of a first or second course; thus, the population was deprived of an additional source of food. The food of people in canteens or at home in December consisted exclusively of what was given out on cards. In fact, the inhabitants of the city received only bread every day, the rest of the products were sold once a decade, and then not always and not completely. But if we assume that workers or employees received food completely within the established norms and evenly distributed them for 30 days, then in this case the daily diet was:
For workers and engineering workers
Employees
Dependents
In children (up to 12 years old)
Of course, the given data, especially in calories, are very conditional. In December, as mentioned above, meat was rarely released, most often it was replaced by other products: egg powder, canned food, jelly from lamb intestines, vegetable-blood brawns. There were also days when the population did not receive any meat or fat at all. Groats were given out most of all pearl barley, oatmeal, peas. Pasta was often replaced with rye flour. But even from the given conditional calculation, which should be considered rather overestimated, it is clear that the adult's need for 3000-3500 calories per day was "forgotten". More than 50% of the food in this starvation diet was bread; the consumption of proteins, fats, vitamins and mineral salts was catastrophically negligible.
In order to replenish empty stomachs, drown out the incomparable suffering from hunger, the inhabitants resorted to various methods of finding food: they caught rooks, fiercely hunted for a surviving cat or dog, they chose everything that could be used for food from home first-aid kits: castor oil, petroleum jelly, glycerol; soup, jelly was cooked from carpenter's glue. But not all the people of the huge city could have additional sources of food for at least a few days, since they did not find them.
It was hard for teenagers who crossed the threshold of eleven years. At the twelfth year of life, the children's card was replaced by a dependent one. The child grew older, took an active part in disarming incendiary bombs, took on his fragile shoulders some of the hard work and household chores, helping his parents, and the ration decreased. Depriving themselves of a piece of bread, the parents supported their weak strengths, but inflicted severe wounds on their bodies.
In unheated apartments, the cold has firmly settled, mercilessly freezing exhausted people. Dystrophy and cold drove 11,085 people to the grave in November. Elderly men were the first to fall under the blows of the scythe of death. Their body could not withstand acute hunger at the very beginning, unlike women of the same age or young men.
To increase the viability of weakened people, the health authorities organized a wide network of stationary points where combined methods of treatment were used: they administered cardiovascular drugs, made an intravenous infusion of glucose, and gave some hot wine. These measures saved the lives of many people, but the “forgotten” minimum of human nutrition made itself felt, more and more adults and children died every day. People's legs and arms were weakening, the body was numb, numbness gradually approached the heart, seized it in a vise, and the end came.
These warmly dressed, apparently not at all hungry women drink tea in their
factory canteen. This is a typical photograph taken
in order to show the Soviet people that, despite the blockade,
life in Leningrad goes on as usual. In the background, even
consider fake cakes!
Death overtook people in various positions: on the street - moving, a person fell and did not rise again; in the apartment - went to bed and fell asleep forever; often the life of the machine was interrupted. Burial was difficult. The transport didn't work. The dead were usually taken away without a coffin, on a sled. Two or three relatives or friends pulled the sled along the endlessly long streets; often, having exhausted themselves, they left the deceased halfway, giving the authorities the right to do with the body as they please.
Public utilities and health workers, daily going around the streets and alleys, picked up corpses, filling them with truck bodies.
Cemeteries and entrances to them were littered with frozen bodies covered with snow. There was not enough strength to dig deep frozen ground. MPVO teams blew up the ground and lowered dozens, and sometimes hundreds of corpses into spacious graves, not knowing the names of the buried.
May the dead forgive the living - in those desperate conditions they could not fulfill their duty to the end, although the dead were worthy of a better rite for their honest working life.
In December, 52,881 people died of dystrophy, and even more in January and February. Diverging death pulled out from the ranks of the besieged comrades in the struggle, friends and relatives at every step. Acute pain pierced people from the loss of loved ones. But the high mortality did not give rise to despair among the people. Leningraders were dying, but how? They gave their lives as heroes, crushing the enemy to the last breath. Their death called the living to a persistent, indomitable struggle. And the struggle continued with unprecedented persistence.
It is of scientific interest that there were no epidemics in Leningrad, moreover, acute and infectious diseases in December 1941 decreased compared to the same month in 1940, as can be seen from the following data:
Number of cases
[From the report of the Leningrad Health Department on January 5, 1942.]
How can one explain that with acute hunger, lack of hot water, cold, and an extremely weakened body, there were no epidemics? The example of Leningrad shows that famine does not necessarily go hand in hand with its inseparable companions—infectious diseases and epidemics. A well-organized sanitary regime breaks this unity. Not only in winter, but also in the spring of 1942, when there were the most favorable conditions for outbreaks of infections, there were none in Leningrad. The authorities raised the people to clean the streets, courtyards, stairwells, attics, basements, sewer wells, in a word, all the centers that could give rise to infections. In March-April, 300,000 people worked daily to clean up the city. Checking apartments and obligatory cleanliness prevented contagious diseases. The inhabitants were starving, but until the last day they performed their social duties, which were necessary in the hostel of citizens.
Hunger left a heavy imprint on people: it withered the body, fettered movement, lulled the body. The microbe-causative agent, penetrating inside such a person, did not find conditions for its development and died. Thin as parchment, skin and bones did not seem to create the necessary environment for the development of infectious microbes. Maybe this is not so, but some other force acted, because there are still so many secrets in nature, but one way or another, and there were no epidemics, infectious diseases at the highest stage of development of alimentary dystrophy decreased, and no one can deny this will be able. In the spring of 1942 there was an outbreak of scurvy as a result of prolonged malnutrition, but scurvy was soon expelled from Leningrad, and there were almost no deaths from this disease.
The high mortality in December and in the first months of 1942 was the result of the blockade of the city and the prolonged and acute lack of food caused by it.
Before the eyes of the whole world, the Nazis sought to destroy spiritually and physically the population of one of the most important political and economic centers of the country. “On our part, in this war, which is waged not for life, but for death, there is no interest in preserving at least part of the population of this big city,” said the directive of the chief of staff of the leadership of the German naval war to naval officers who were with the army group “Nord » [Directive of the Chief of Staff of the leadership of the German naval war. Berlin, September 29, 1941, No. 1 - 1a 1601/41 - "The future of the city of St. Petersburg." Translation from German.]. And only because of the indomitable will to victory of the Leningraders and their burning hatred for the invaders, the spirit of the people remained adamant.
The Soviet government, by its vigorous actions to deliver food, military equipment and other goods necessary for defense, as well as military measures to divert enemy forces from Leningrad, thwarted the vile plans of the Nazis.
In 1947, German doctors reported to the world about the death of the German population from starvation in the western zone of Germany, receiving a diet equal to 800 calories per person per day. They accused the victorious countries of deliberately destroying the German people by starvation. In their memorandum, they wrote: “We, German doctors, consider it our duty to declare to the whole world that everything that happens here is in direct contrast to the “education in the spirit of democracy” promised to us; on the contrary, it is the destruction of the biological basis of democracy. Before our eyes, the spiritual and physical destruction of a great nation is taking place, and no one can escape responsibility for this, unless he does everything in his power to save and help. [Josue de Castro. Geography of the famine, p. 328.]. In fact, as Josué de Castro correctly writes, the Allies were far from the idea of starving the population of Germany: “The low food rations established in Germany in the post-war period were a natural consequence of the devastating war and the collapse of the world economy caused by it” [Josue de Castro. Geography of the Famine, p. 329.]. In other words, through the fault of the Germans themselves, famine engulfed a number of countries, including Germany.
When famine touched Germany and the German population felt deprivation (although there was nothing similar in comparison with the torment endured by the population of Leningrad), German doctors found strong words and means to appeal to the conscience of the peoples of the world "about the death of a great nation." These same doctors did not find a single word of protest against the open actions of their compatriots, the official authorities of Nazi Germany, to destroy the civilian population of Leningrad, the largest industrial center of the USSR, by starvation.
With constant aching pain in the stomach, when hunger pushes people to acts incompatible with the law, strict order was maintained in the city not only by the authorities, but, what is most remarkable, by the citizens themselves.
The driver of the truck, going around the snowdrifts, was in a hurry to deliver freshly baked bread to the opening of shops. At the corner of Rastannaya and Ligovka, a shell exploded near the truck. The front part of the body seemed to be cut off obliquely, loaves of bread scattered along the pavement, the driver was killed by a shrapnel, darkness was around, as if in a whirlpool. The conditions for theft are favorable, there is no one and no one to ask. Passers-by, noticing that the bread was not guarded by anyone, raised the alarm, surrounded the scene with a ring and did not leave until another car arrived with the forwarder of the bakery. The loaves were collected and delivered to the shops. Hungry people guarding a wrecked "car with a valuable cargo, experienced an irresistible need for food, the smell of warm bread kindled their natural desire, the temptation was truly great, but still the consciousness of duty overcame the temptation.
On one of the quiet streets of the Volodarsky district, in the evening, a heavily built man entered the bakery. Carefully, scowling at the buyers and two female sellers who were in the store, he suddenly jumped behind the counter and began throwing bread from the shelves into the store, shouting: “Take it, they want to starve us to death, do not give in to persuasion, demand bread!” Noticing that no one took the loaves and that his words were not supported, the unknown person, having hit the saleswoman, rushed to the door, but he did not manage to leave. The buyers, as one, rushed to the provocateur, detained him and handed him over to the authorities.
Hundreds of other very diverse examples can be cited to confirm the exemplary behavior and high consciousness of the citizens of such a large city. There was no firewood, people suffered untold hardships, but the trees of parks and gardens were zealously preserved.
The example of besieged and starving Leningrad overturns the arguments of those foreign authors who argue that under the influence of an irresistible feeling of hunger, people lose their moral foundations and a person appears as a predatory animal. If this were true, then in Leningrad, where 2.5 million people were starving for a long time, complete arbitrariness would reign, and not impeccable order.
The behavior of Leningraders during the blockade in conditions of incredible hardships and acute hunger was at a high moral level. People behaved stoically, proudly, preserving the integrity of the human personality until the last minute of their lives. Soviet people have a feeling that is stronger than death, it is love for the socialist system they have created. This feeling guided the Soviet people in their struggle against foreign invaders, in their struggle against hunger and other hardships.
Life in the besieged city went on as usual.
Warriors at the forefront exhausted the enemy with active actions, while incurring losses themselves. Hospitals were overflowing with the wounded, and the conditions for their recovery had deteriorated significantly compared to the initial period of the blockade. The chambers became semi-dark, plywood or cardboard replaced glass, broken by an air wave. The water supply did not work, the supply of electricity was intermittent due to lack of fuel. Shelling and cold created incredible difficulties. But even under these conditions, medical workers achieved brilliant results with good care, timely help, and surgical intervention; they often saved the lives of people who were on the verge of death. Most of the wounded returned to duty. The shelled, who had been in battles, the soldiers were expensive at the front. Wishing to restore the strength of the wounded and sick as soon as possible, the Military Council decided to issue in addition to the basic ration per person per day: egg powder - 20 grams, cocoa powder - 5 grams, dried mushrooms - 2 grams. Everything that the defenders had at their disposal was given to the wounded in the first place.
An obstacle to recovery, and at times to the preservation of the life of the wounded, was the lack of blood for transfusion. There were many who wanted to donate blood, but with the transition to a starvation diet, donors lost strength and could not give blood without serious damage to their health. “It is imperative to support donors with food and have blood for wounded soldiers,” said A. A. Zhdanov. For this purpose, since December 9, special norms have been established for people who donate blood. They added to the usual ration: 200 grams of bread, 30 grams of fat, 40 grams of meat, 25 grams of sugar, 30 grams of confectionery, 30 grams of cereals, 25 grams of canned fish, half an egg per day. Such a ration allowed donors to give blood twice a quarter without compromising their health.
Scientists who refused to evacuate at one time endured hardships in the dark time of the blockade, like all citizens. Many of them, especially the elderly, could not stand the hunger. Upon learning of this, A. A. Zhdanov immediately demanded a list of scientists, reviewed it and sent it to the city trade department with instructions to allocate food to scientists in addition to rations in such a way that they could maintain their health. Few products were needed for this purpose, but the life of scientists was saved.
For those working in peat extraction and logging, a norm of 375 grams of bread per day was set - 125 grams more than for a worker's card. Giving their last strength, the lumberjacks (and these were mostly Komsomol members) supported the life of defense enterprises, bakeries, canteens, made it possible to gradually heat hospitals and hospitals. Working waist-deep in snow, in the cold, they needed another ration, incomparably larger and better, but, alas, there was no such possibility.
The lack of fuel froze not only the water supply, but also people. To warm the water, firewood is needed, but there was none. They burned furniture, books, fences, wooden houses, especially they dismantled and burned a lot of houses to heat apartments and hostels on Okhta, but all this burned out quickly, like fireworks. When houses are provided with fuel and life goes on in the usual steady rhythm, it seems that a little, mere trifles, two or three logs are needed to boil water and cook dinner. The city dweller does not think about how much fuel is needed for a city like Leningrad. And for its capacious belly, more than 120 trains of firewood are needed daily in order to support the more or less normal activity of the urban economy. Only three or four routes of firewood per day were thrown into its voracious mouth, they could not give more fuel either in terms of forest and peat reserves, or in terms of the throughput of the railroads cut off by the blockade. No fences, wooden houses, sheds and furniture could replace even to a small extent the missing firewood and save people from the cold. The houses were left without light, without water, without heating, they, like statues, observed the human drama, the suffering of people and their thirst for life. If the inhabitants of the city hardly, but delivered water to their homes, with an effort overcoming the icy steps of steep stairs, then boiling water was an insoluble problem for them. The lack of hot water caused a lot of grief. In December, the city executive committee opened public points for the release of boiling water at canteens, large residential buildings and on the streets, which brought great relief and joy to the population.
As time went. From small to large, everyone overcame hunger. They worked and lived with strong hope for the triumph of a just cause. They did not grumble at fate, but modestly to themselves, everyone was proud that in difficult times, together with everyone, they were fighting for their beloved city, for the honor of the Motherland. Despite all the hardships, no matter how long the path of struggle may still be, the holy feeling of a just cause raised the blacksmith, engineer, lumberjack, scientist to heroic deeds, this same feeling guided the artists when they sang, played, entertained other hungry and tired people, although their own legs gave way and wheezing was heard in their chests. Only true patriots and strong-willed people could endure such hardships.
Almost all theater groups were promptly evacuated to the interior of the country, but the operetta troupe remained. The people loved this theatre. Listening to funny jokes, witticisms, music, people forgot for several hours from the burden of thoughts that never left them.
A fantastic picture rises before your eyes. December. It's 25 degrees outside. It is a little warmer in the unheated room of the theater, and yet the hall is full of people, all in outerwear, many elderly people in felt boots. At three o'clock in the afternoon, the operetta "Rose Marie" began. The artists played in light suits; the faces are sharp, pale, but smiling, and the ballerinas are so thin that it seemed that when moving they would inevitably break. During intermissions, many performers fainted, but the human will defeated the exhausted flesh; they got up, fell down, got up again and continued to play, although their eyes were dimmed. Rarely has a performance gone unhindered; in the midst of the action, the shrill sounds of sirens burst in, warning of danger. In these cases, breaks were announced, the audience was taken out of the theater to the bomb shelter, and the artists in makeup and costumes, armed with tongs for dropping incendiary bombs, climbed onto the icy roofs and stood on duty on the towers. After the lights out, the audience filled the hall, and the artists, descending from the roofs, continued the interrupted game. At the end of the performance, the audience stood up and, as a sign of gratitude, silently and reverently greeted the performers for several minutes (there was not enough strength to applaud). The people of Leningrad cherished the artists and understood at what cost, with what extreme effort of will, they gave joy and caused forgotten laughter from the audience.
A fallen horse is for food. Residents of besieged Leningrad are trying to get food by carving up the corpse of a horse.
The hardships associated with the war, and especially with the blockade of the city, were experienced by all people, but immeasurably more difficulties fell to the lot of women. They worked in production, where they replaced men called up for military service, and ran the household. No one was able to remove their worries about the house, about the children. The meager norms of the products obtained required their strict distribution by day and during the day - by hour. In order not to freeze the children, they got firewood with great difficulty, carefully spending each log. Water was hauled in buckets from nearby rivers. They washed clothes in the dim light of an oil lamp, mended clothes for themselves and their children. Under the weight of all the worries and hardships that the blockade brought, under the conditions of a double load - at work and at home - many women seriously undermined their health. But their will to live, their fortitude, their determination and quickness, their discipline will always serve as an example and inspiration for millions of people.
Hunger tormented people, everyone lived in hope - the winter road was about to be established and food would be brought in, a little more - and there would be bread. But, unfortunately, the lake did not freeze. The days of waiting dragged on.
D.V. Pavlov
From the book "Leningrad in the blockade"
... Hunger is permanent, cannot be switched off ... the most painful, most dreary of all during meals, when food was approaching the end with terrifying speed, without bringing saturation.
Lydia Ginzburg
The thoughts of all the inhabitants of Leningrad were busy with how to eat and get food. Dreams, aspirations and plans were first relegated to the background, then forgotten altogether, because the brain could only think about one thing - about food. Everyone was starving. Zhdanov established a strict military ration in the city - half a kilogram of bread and a bowl of meat or fish stew a day. The destruction of the Badaev warehouses on September 8 aggravated an already critical situation. During the first six months of the blockade, the rations steadily decreased, and in the end it was no longer enough to sustain life. It was necessary to look for food or some kind of replacement for it. After several months, there were almost no dogs, cats and birds in cages left in the city.
Bread card of the blockade. December 1941
Suddenly, one of the last sources of fat, castor oil, was in demand. His supplies soon ran out.
Bread baked from flour swept off the floor along with garbage, nicknamed the “blockade loaf”, turned out black as coal and had almost the same composition. The broth was nothing more than boiled water with a pinch of salt and, if you were lucky, a cabbage leaf. Money lost all value, like any non-food items and jewelry - it was impossible to buy a crust of bread with family silver. Even birds and rodents suffered without food, until they all disappeared: either starved to death or were eaten by desperate people. The poetess Vera Inber wrote about a mouse in her apartment, desperately trying to find at least one crumb. People, while they still had strength, stood in long lines for food, sometimes for whole days in the piercing cold, and often returned home empty-handed, filled with despair - if they remained alive. The Germans, seeing long queues of Leningraders, dropped shells on the unfortunate inhabitants of the city. And yet people stood in lines: death from a shell was possible, while death from starvation was inevitable.
Notebook of Tanya Savicheva
Residents of Leningrad collect water on Nevsky Prospekt in the holes that appeared after the shelling
RIA Novosti archive, image #907 / Boris Kudoyarov / CC-BY-SA 3.0
Everyone had to decide for themselves how to dispose of a tiny day's ration - eat it in one sitting in the hope (in vain) that the stomach at least for a while will seem like it has digested something, or stretch it out for a whole day. Relatives and friends helped each other, but the next day they were desperately quarreling among themselves about who got how much. When all alternative sources of food ran out, people in desperation turned to inedibles - livestock feed, linseed oil and leather belts. Soon, belts, which at first people ate out of desperation, were already considered a luxury. Wood glue and paste containing animal fat were scraped off furniture and walls and boiled. People ate the earth collected in the vicinity of the Badaev warehouses for the sake of the particles of melted sugar contained in it.
The city ran out of water as water pipes froze and pumping stations were bombed. Without water, the taps dried up, the sewer system stopped working. People used buckets for the administration of natural needs and poured sewage into the street. In desperation, the inhabitants of the city punched holes in the frozen Neva and scooped up water in buckets. Without water, bakeries could not bake bread. In January 1942, when the water shortage became especially acute, 8,000 people, still strong enough, lined up in a human chain and passed hundreds of buckets of water from hand to hand, just to get the bakeries up and running again.
Numerous stories have been preserved of the unfortunate who stood in line for many hours for a piece of bread only to have it snatched from their hands and greedily devoured by a man who was distraught with hunger. The theft of bread cards became widespread; the desperate robbed people in broad daylight or ransacked the pockets of corpses and those who had been wounded during German shelling. Obtaining a duplicate turned into such a long and painful process that many died without waiting for the new ration card to end its wanderings in the jungle of the bureaucratic system. There was a moment when only Zhdanov personally could issue a duplicate. The Germans, through their informants, monitored the extent to which the inhabitants of the city had lost the ability to support each other: for them, this was a measure of the decline in the morale of the Leningraders.
Hunger turned people into living skeletons. Ration sizes reached a minimum in November 1941. The ration of manual laborers was 700 calories per day, while the minimum norm is approximately 3000 calories. Employees were entitled to 473 calories per day, while the norm is 2000-2500 calories, and children received 423 calories per day - less than a quarter of what a newborn needs.
The limbs swelled, the bellies swelled, the skin tightened around the face, the eyes sunk, the gums bled, the teeth grew from malnutrition, the skin became covered with ulcers.
The fingers stiffened and refused to straighten. Children with shriveled faces looked like old people, and old people looked like the living dead. Hunger deprived young people of their youth. Children, left overnight orphans, wandered the streets like lifeless shadows in search of food. Terrible hunger and frost robbed people of all their strength. People weakened, fainted. Every movement hurt. Even the process of chewing food became unbearable.
It was easier to lie in bed than to get up and go in search of food. But people got up, they had no choice, because they understood that if they did not do this, they would never get up again. Exhausted and frozen, people did not change clothes and walked in the same clothes for months. There was another sinister reason why people didn't change their clothes. Lydia Ginzburg described it this way:
They lost sight of their body.
It went into the depths, walled up with clothes, and there, in the depths, it changed, was reborn. The man knew it was getting scary.
The Great Patriotic War is the most difficult and most heroic page in the history of our country. Sometimes it was unbearably hard, like in besieged Leningrad. Much of what happened during the blockade is simply not made public. Something remained in the archives of the special services, something was preserved only in the mouths of generations. As a result, numerous myths and conjectures are born. Sometimes based on the truth, sometimes completely invented. One of the most sensitive topics of this period: did mass cannibalism exist in besieged Leningrad? Did hunger drive people to such an extent that they began to eat their own fellow citizens?
Let's start with the fact that, of course, there was cannibalism in besieged Leningrad. Of course, because, firstly, such facts were documented. Secondly, overcoming moral taboos in the event of the danger of one's own death is a natural phenomenon for people. The instinct of self-preservation will win. Not everyone, some. Cannibalism as a result of starvation is also classified as forced cannibalism. That is, under normal conditions, it would never occur to a person to eat human meat. However, the acute hunger of some people forces them to go for it.
Cases of forced cannibalism were recorded during the famine in the Volga region (1921-22), Ukraine (1932-1933), Kazakhstan (1932-33), North Korea (1966) and in many other cases. Perhaps the most famous is the Andean plane crash in 1972, when passengers on Uruguayan Air Force Fairchild FH-227Ds were forced to eat the frozen bodies of their comrades in order to survive.
Thus, cannibalism in a mass and unprecedented famine is almost inevitable. Let's return to besieged Leningrad. Today, there are practically no reliable sources about the extent of cannibalism in that period. In addition to the stories of eyewitnesses, which, of course, can be emotionally embellished, there are texts of police reports. However, their reliability also remains in question. One example:
“Cases of cannibalism in the city have decreased. If in the first ten days of February 311 people were arrested for cannibalism, then in the second ten days of February 155 people were arrested. An employee of the SOYUZUTIL office P., 32 years old, the wife of a Red Army soldier, has 2 dependent children aged 8-11 years, brought a 13-year-old girl E. to her room, killed her with an ax and ate the corpse for food. V. - 69 years old, a widow, killed her granddaughter B. with a knife and, together with the mother of the murdered and the brother of the murdered - 14 years old, ate the meat of the corpse for food.
Was this really the case, or is this summary simply invented and distributed on the Internet?
In 2000, the European House publishing house published a book by Russian researcher Nikita Lomagin "In the grip of hunger: The Siege of Leningrad in the documents of the German special services and the NKVD." Lomagin notes that the peak of cannibalism came in the terrible year 1942, especially in the winter months, when the temperature dropped to minus 35, and the monthly death rate from starvation reached 100,000 - 130,000 people. He cites an NKVD report dated March 1942 that "a total of 1,171 people were arrested for cannibalism." On April 14, 1557 people were already arrested, on May 3 - 1739, on June 2 - 1965 ... By September 1942, cases of cannibalism become rare, in a special report dated April 7, 1943 for the first time it says that "in March there were no murders for the purpose of eating human flesh." Comparing the number of those arrested for cannibalism with the number of residents of besieged Leningrad (including refugees - 3.7 million people), Lomagin came to the conclusion that cannibalism was not widespread here. Many other researchers also believe that the main cases of cannibalism in besieged Leningrad fell on the worst - 1942 - year.
If you listen and read stories about cannibalism in Leningrad at that time, then your hair will stand on end. But how much truth is in these stories? One of the most famous such stories is about the "blockade blush". That is, Leningraders identified cannibals by their ruddy faces. And even, supposedly, they were divided into those who eat fresh meat, and those who eat corpses. There are even stories of mothers who ate their children. Stories of whole roaming gangs of cannibals kidnapping and eating people.
I think that a significant part of such stories is still fiction. Yes, cannibalism existed, but it is unlikely that it took the forms that are now being told about. I don't believe mothers could eat their sons. And the story about the "blush" is most likely just a tale that the blockade survivors may have really believed in. As you know, fear and hunger do incredible things to the imagination. Was it really possible to acquire a healthy glow by irregularly eating human meat? Unlikely. I believe that there was no way to identify cannibals in besieged Leningrad - this is more speculation and an imagination inflamed with hunger. Those cases of domestic cannibalism that really took place were overgrown with fictitious details, rumors, and excessive emotional coloring. As a result - the emergence of stories about entire gangs of ruddy cannibals, mass trade in pies with human meat and families where relatives killed each other to eat.
Yes, there were cases of cannibalism. But they are insignificant against the backdrop of a huge number of cases of manifestation of the indomitable will of people who did not stop studying, working, engaging in culture and society. People were dying of hunger, but they painted pictures, played concerts, kept their spirit and faith in victory.
Today Russia is celebrating the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Leningrad from the fascist blockade. More terrible than the bombing and shelling at that time was the famine, which mowed down thousands of people. You can read all the horror of those terrible days under the cut.
In front of me was a boy, maybe nine years old. He was covered with some kind of handkerchief, then he was covered with a wadded blanket, the boy stood frozen. Cold. Some of the people left, some were replaced by others, but the boy did not leave. I ask this boy: “Why don’t you go warm up?” And he: “It’s cold at home anyway.” I say: “What do you live alone?” - “No, with your mother.” - “So, mom can't go?” - “No, she can't. She is dead." I say: “How dead?!” - “Mother died, it’s a pity for her. Now I figured it out. Now I only put her to bed for the day, and put her to the stove at night. She's still dead. And it’s cold from her.”
Blockade book Ales Adamovich, Daniil Granin
Blockade book by Ales Adamovich and Daniil Granin. I bought it once in the best St. Petersburg second-hand bookstore on Liteiny. The book is not desktop, but always in sight. A modest gray cover with black letters keeps under itself a living, terrible, great document that has collected the memories of eyewitnesses who survived the siege of Leningrad, and the authors themselves, who became participants in those events. It is hard to read it, but I would like everyone to do it ...
From an interview with Danil Granin:
“- During the blockade, marauders were shot on the spot, but also, I know, cannibals were allowed to go to waste without trial or investigation. Is it possible to condemn these unfortunate people, distraught from hunger, who have lost their human appearance, whom the tongue does not dare to call people, and how frequent were the cases when, for lack of other food, they ate their own kind?
Hunger, I'll tell you, deprives the restraining barriers: morality disappears, moral prohibitions go away. Hunger is an incredible feeling that does not let go for a moment, but, to the surprise of me and Adamovich, while working on this book, we realized: Leningrad has not dehumanized, and this is a miracle! Yes, there was cannibalism...
- … eating children?
There were worse things too.
Hmm, what could be worse? Well, for example?
I don't even want to talk... (Pause). Imagine that one of your own children was fed to another, and there was something that we never wrote about. No one forbade anything, but ... We could not ...
Was there some amazing case of survival in the blockade that shook you to the core?
Yes, the mother fed her children with her blood, cutting her veins.
“... In each apartment, the dead lay. And we were not afraid of anything. Will you go earlier? After all, it’s unpleasant when the dead ... So our family died out, that’s how they lay. And when they put it in the barn!” (M.Ya. Babich)
“Dystrophics have no fear. At the Academy of Arts, on the descent to the Neva, they dumped corpses. I calmly climbed over this mountain of corpses ... It would seem that the weaker the person, the more scared he is, but no, the fear disappeared. What would happen to me if it were in peacetime - I would die of horror. And now, after all: there is no light on the stairs - I'm afraid. As soon as people ate, fear appeared ”(Nina Ilyinichna Laksha).
Pavel Filippovich Gubchevsky, researcher at the Hermitage:
- What did the halls look like?
— Empty frames! It was Orbeli's wise order: leave all the frames in place. Thanks to this, the Hermitage restored its exposition eighteen days after the return of the paintings from the evacuation! And during the war they hung like that, empty eye sockets-frames, through which I spent several excursions.
- Through empty frames?
- On empty frames.
The Unknown Walker is an example of blockade mass altruism.
He was naked in extreme days, in extreme circumstances, but his nature is all the more authentic.
How many of them were - unknown passers-by! They disappeared, returning life to a person; dragged away from the deadly edge, they disappeared without a trace, even their appearance did not have time to be imprinted in the dimmed consciousness. It seemed that they, unknown passers-by, had no obligations, no family feelings, they did not expect either fame or pay. Compassion? But all around was death, and they walked past the corpses indifferently, marveling at their callousness.
Most say to themselves: the death of the closest, dearest people did not reach the heart, some kind of protective system in the body worked, nothing was perceived, there was no strength to respond to grief.
A besieged apartment cannot be depicted in any museum, in any layout or panorama, just as frost, melancholy, hunger cannot be depicted ...
The blockade survivors themselves, remembering, note broken windows, furniture sawn into firewood - the most sharp, unusual. But at that time, only children and visitors who came from the front were really struck by the view of the apartment. As it was, for example, with Vladimir Yakovlevich Alexandrov:
“- You knock for a long, long time - nothing is heard. And you already have the complete impression that everyone died there. Then some shuffling begins, the door opens. In an apartment where the temperature is equal to the temperature of the environment, a creature wrapped up in god knows what appears. You hand him a bag of some crackers, biscuits or something else. And what struck? Lack of emotional outburst.
And even if the products?
Even products. After all, many starving people already had an atrophy of appetite.
Hospital doctor:
- I remember they brought twin boys ... So their parents sent them a small package: three cookies and three sweets. Sonechka and Serezhenka - that was the name of these children. The boy gave himself and her a cookie, then the cookies were divided in half.
There are crumbs left, he gives the crumbs to his sister. And the sister throws him the following phrase: “Seryozhenka, it’s hard for men to endure the war, you will eat these crumbs.” They were three years old.
Three years?!
They barely spoke, yes, three years, such crumbs! Moreover, the girl was then taken away, but the boy remained. I don’t know if they survived or not…”
During the blockade, the amplitude of human passions increased enormously - from the most painful falls to the highest manifestations of consciousness, love, and devotion.
“... Among the children with whom I left was the boy of our employee - Igor, a charming boy, handsome. His mother took care of him very tenderly, with terrible love. Even in the first evacuation, she said: “Maria Vasilievna, you also give your children goat's milk. I take goat milk to Igor. And my children were even placed in another barracks, and I tried not to give them anything, not a single gram in excess of what was supposed to be. And then this Igor lost his cards. And now, in the month of April, I somehow walk past the Eliseevsky store (here dystrophics have already begun to crawl out into the sun) and I see a boy sitting, a terrible, edematous skeleton. "Igor? What happened to you?" - I say. “Maria Vasilievna, my mother kicked me out. My mother told me that she would not give me another piece of bread.” - "How so? It can't be!" He was in critical condition. We barely climbed with him to my fifth floor, I barely dragged him. By this time, my children were already going to kindergarten and were still holding on. He was so terrible, so pathetic! And all the time he said: “I don’t blame my mother. She is doing the right thing. It's my fault, I lost my card." - “I, I say, I will arrange a school” (which was supposed to open). And my son whispers: "Mom, give him what I brought from kindergarten."
I fed him and went with him to Chekhov Street. We enter. The room is terribly dirty. This dystrophic, disheveled woman lies. Seeing her son, she immediately shouted: “Igor, I won’t give you a single piece of bread. Get out!” The room is stench, dirt, darkness. I say: “What are you doing?! After all, there are only some three or four days left - he will go to school, get better. - "Nothing! Here you are standing on your feet, but I am not standing. I won't give him anything! I’m lying down, I’m hungry…” What a transformation from a tender mother into such a beast! But Igor did not leave. He stayed with her, and then I found out that he died.
A few years later I met her. She was blooming, already healthy. She saw me, rushed to me, shouted: “What have I done!” I told her: “Well, now what to talk about it!” “No, I can't take it anymore. All thoughts are about him. After a while, she committed suicide."
The fate of the animals of besieged Leningrad is also part of the tragedy of the city. human tragedy. Otherwise, you cannot explain why not one or two, but almost every tenth blockade survivor remembers, tells about the death of an elephant in a zoo by a bomb.
Many, many people remember besieged Leningrad through this state: it is especially uncomfortable, terrifying for a person, and he is closer to death, disappearance because cats, dogs, even birds have disappeared! ..
“Down below us, in the apartment of the late president, four women are stubbornly fighting for their lives - his three daughters and granddaughter,” notes G.A. Knyazev. - Still alive and their cat, which they pulled out to rescue in every alarm.
The other day a friend, a student, came to see them. I saw a cat and begged to give it to him. He stuck straight: "Give it back, give it back." Barely got rid of him. And his eyes lit up. The poor women were even frightened. Now they are worried that he will sneak in and steal their cat.
O loving woman's heart! Fate has deprived the student Nehorosheva of natural motherhood, and she rushes about like with a child, with a cat, Loseva rushes with her dog. Here are two specimens of these rocks in my radius. All the rest have long since been eaten!”
Residents of besieged Leningrad with their pets
“The following incident occurred in one of the orphanages in the Kuibyshev region. On March 12, all the staff gathered in the boys' room to watch a fight between two children. As it turned out later, it was started by them on a "principled boyish question." And before that there were "fights", but only verbal and because of the bread.
The head of the house, comrade Vasilyeva says: “This is the most encouraging fact in the last six months. At first the children lay, then they began to argue, then they got out of bed, and now - an unprecedented thing - they are fighting. Previously, I would have been fired from work for such a case, but now we, the educators, stood looking at the fight and rejoiced. It means that our little nation has come to life.”
In the surgical department of the City Children's Hospital named after Dr. Rauhfus, New Year 1941/42
@ Veselov A.P. // National history. 2002. № 3
Many memoirs, research and literary works have been written about the heroic and at the same time tragic events associated with the defense and blockade of Leningrad. But years go by, new memoirs of participants in the events, previously classified archival documents, are published. They provide an opportunity to fill in the “blank spots” that existed until recently, to study more thoroughly the factors that allowed the besieged Leningraders to frustrate the enemy’s plans to take over the city with the help of hunger. The statements of Field Marshal Keitel dated September 10, 1941 testify to the calculations of the Nazi command: “ Leningrad must be quickly cut off and starved out. This is of great political, military and economic importance."1
.
During the war years, the leaders of the defense of Leningrad did not want to talk about the facts of mass famine, and prevented the appearance of information about it in the press. After the end of the war, writings about the Leningrad blockade dealt mainly with the tragic aspects of the problem, but paid little attention to the measures (with the exception of evacuation) that were taken by the government and the military leadership to overcome the famine. Recently published collections of documents extracted from the Leningrad archives contain valuable information that allows us to shed more light on this issue. 2 .
In the collection of documents "Leningrad under siege" 3 Of particular interest is the "Information note on the work of the city office of the All-Union Association" Tsentrzagotzerno "for the II half of 1941 - on the grain resources of Leningrad." This document gives a complete picture of the state of the city's grain resources on the eve of the war, at the beginning of the blockade and on January 1, 1942. It turns out that on July 1, 1941 the situation with grain reserves was extremely tense: there was flour and grain in the warehouses of Zagotzern and small factories 7 307 tons. This provided Leningrad with flour for 2, oats for 3 weeks, cereals for 2.5 months 4 . The military situation required the adoption of urgent measures to increase grain reserves. From the beginning of the war, the export of grain through the Leningrad port elevators was stopped. As of July 1, its balance increased the grain reserves of Leningrad by 40,625 tons. At the same time, measures were taken to return to the Leningrad port steamships with export grain bound for the ports of Germany and Finland. In total, since the beginning of the war, 13 steamships have been unloaded in Leningrad with 21,922 tons of grain and 1,327 tons of flour.
Measures were also taken to accelerate the movement of trains with grain to the city by rail. For operational monitoring of the movement of grain trains in the Yaroslavl and Kalinin regions, employees of the Leningrad City Executive Committee were sent as authorized employees. As a result, before the blockade was established, 62,000 tons of grain, flour and cereals were delivered to Leningrad by rail. This made it possible until November 1941 to ensure the uninterrupted operation of the baking industry.
The lack of information about the real state of affairs with food gave rise to myths during the years of the blockade that continue to live today. One of them concerns a fire at the Badaevsky warehouses, which allegedly caused a famine. This was told by the director of the Leningrad Museum of Bread M.I. Glazaminsky. In a fire on September 8, 1941, about 3 thousand tons of flour burned down. Assuming that it was rye flour, and taking into account the practiced baking rate, we can calculate the amount of baked bread - about 5 thousand tons. 8 days 5 .
The authors are also wrong, who see the cause of the famine in the fact that the city leadership did not disperse the available stocks of grain products in a timely manner. According to documents published today, by order of the executive committee of the Lensoviet, the dispersal was carried out by increasing the balances in the distribution network, at bakeries and exporting flour to specially designated warehouses, empty stores and other premises assigned to bakeries in different parts of the city. Base No. 7, located on the Moscow Highway, was completely liberated even before the enemy could begin shelling the area. In total, 5,205 tons of flour were taken out and 33 storage places were loaded, in addition to the warehouses of bakeries and trading organizations 6 .
With the establishment of the blockade, when the railway communication between the city and the country ceased, commodity resources decreased so much that they did not provide the population with the main types of food according to the established norms. In this regard, in September 1941 tough measures were taken to save food products, in particular, the norms for issuing bread to workers and engineering and technical workers were reduced from 800 in September to 250 in November 1941, employees - respectively from 600 to 125 g, dependents - from 400 to 125 g, children under 12 years old - from 400 to 125 tons 7 .
The same maximum decrease in the issuance rates in the indicated months occurred for cereals, meat, and confectionery. And since December, due to the lack of resources for fish, the norm of its issuance has not been announced for any of the population groups. In addition, in December 1941, the residents of the city did not receive enough sugar and confectionery compared to the norm. The threat of mass starvation grew. The increase in mortality in Leningrad due to a sharp reduction in food is reflected in the certificate of the UNKVD of the Leningrad Region. as of December 25, 1941 8 . If in the pre-war period up to 3,500 people died in the city on average every month, then in the last months of 1941 the death rate was: in October - 6,199 people, in November - 9,183, in 25 days of December - 39,073 people. For 5 days, from December 20 to 24, 656 people died on the streets of the city. Among those who died from December 1 to December 10, there were 6,686 men (71.1%), women - 2,755 (28.9%). In October-December 1941, especially high mortality was observed among infants and persons over 40 years of age.
The reasons for the sharp reduction in food supplies in the city in late 1941 - early 1942 are, along with the establishment of a blockade, the sudden capture by the Germans in early November of the Tikhvin railway junction, which excluded the supply of food to the eastern shore of Ladoga. Tikhvin was liberated only on December 9, 1941, and the Tikhvin-Volkhov railway was restored and opened for traffic only from January 2, 1942.
(On December 12, the head of the Osinovetsky port on the western bank of Ladoga, Captain Evgrafov, said: “ Due to ice formation, the Osinovetsky military port cannot carry out cargo operations until the opening of spring navigation.9 . The ice road was almost non-existent. Since November 14, only about three dozen transport aircraft have been used to deliver food, transferring small-sized food cargoes from the Khvoynoye station to Leningrad: oil, canned food, concentrates, crackers. November 16 A.A. Zhdanov was informed that the population and the front were provided with flour until November 26, pasta and sugar - 23 each, rye breadcrumbs - until December 13, 1941.
On the critical days of December, when food supplies dropped to the limit, two unexpected orders came from Moscow on the night of December 24-25. The first one read: by December 31, five motor transport battalions should be formed and sent to the disposal of the Supreme High Command. Two - from the 54th army, one - from the 23rd and two - " from the head of the front line"(i.e. from Ladoga) with a full gas station and with the best drivers.
The second order came from the head of the Main Directorate of the Civil Air Fleet B.C. Molokov. Referring to the order of a member of the State Defense Committee V.M. Molotov, he reported that from December 27, the Douglas aircraft supplying Leningrad with food from the Khvoinoye airfield were transferred to Moscow and would not serve the Leningrad Front.
In mid-December, the secretary of the Leningrad Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks T.F. Shtykov was sent to the mainland to "knock out" food for the besieged city. In a letter to a member of the Military Council of the Leningrad Front N.V. Solovyov wrote:
« Nikolai Vasilyevich, I am sending you this note after returning from Yaroslavl. I must say, wonderful comrades there, not in words, but in deeds, who wanted to help Leningrad. We agreed on all issues related to the supply of Leningrad at the expense of the Yaroslavl region ... The Yaroslavl comrades prepared three echelons of meat for the Leningraders. But ... two were redirected to some other place and one to Moscow.
The writer Viktor Demidov, who reported these previously unknown facts, noted at a round table meeting of the “Inhabitants of besieged Leningrad” society:
« It seems to me that for several days, from December 27 to about January 4, catastrophically little food arrived in the city. And since the bakeries have long been supplied "from the wheels", it seems that the vast majority of Leningraders did not receive anything these days. And wasn’t it during these tragic days that the remnants of physiological protection against a deadly starvation disease were finally broken in a huge mass of them?10 .
Indeed, we heard from many blockade survivors that at the end of December - beginning of January there were days when no bread was delivered to the shops of the city.
Only after A.A. Zhdanov visited Moscow and was received by Stalin, the flow of food supplies to besieged Leningrad resumed. January 10, 1942 signed by A.I. Mikoyan "Order of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR on assistance to Leningrad with food." In it, the relevant people's commissariats were obliged to ship to the besieged city in January 18,000 tons of flour and 10,000 tons of cereals (in excess of 48,000 tons of flour and 4,122 tons of cereals shipped as of January 5, 1942). Leningrad also received from different regions of the Union additionally, in excess of the previously established limits, meat, vegetable and animal oil, sugar, fish, concentrates and other products. 11 .
The supply of the city with food largely depended on the work of the October railway. In a conversation with a correspondent of Leningradskaya Pravda on January 13, 1942, P.S. Popkov noted:
« It must be admitted that the Oktyabrskaya road is not working well, it turned out to be unprepared to fulfill its sacred duty in ensuring the uninterrupted transportation of food supplies. Unfortunately, there were a lot of sour, forgetting about their responsibility among the railway workers, especially in the management of the road and in its departments, there were a lot of ”12 .
Often, trains with cargo for Leningrad were delayed for a long time on the way. According to the reports of the grain-producing enterprises of Leningrad for 1941, theft of goods was revealed. In each of the railway cars, there was much less flour than indicated in the accompanying documents. 13 .
In a difficult situation of lack of food resources, the food industry of Leningrad was looking for the possibility of creating food substitutes, organizing new enterprises for their development. Substitutes were used in the bread, meat, dairy, confectionery, canning industries, as well as in public catering, as mentioned in the certificate of the Secretary of the City Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks Ya.F. Kapustin in the name of A.A. Zhdanov.
In the baking industry, food cellulose as an admixture to bread was used in the USSR for the first time. The production of food pulp was organized at six enterprises. One of the indicators of the mobilization of internal resources in the baking industry was the increase in bread baking up to 71%. Due to the increase in baking, additional products of 2,230 tons were obtained. Guts, soy flour, technical albumin were used as components in the production of meat products (it was obtained from egg white, animal blood plasma, whey). As a result, an additional 1360 tons of meat products were produced, including 730 tons of jelly, 380 tons of table sausage, 170 tons of albumin sausage and 80 tons of vegetable-blood bread. The dairy industry processed 320 tons of soybeans and 25 tons of cotton cake, which gave an additional 2,617 tons of products, including: soy milk 1,360 tons, soy milk products (yogurt, cottage cheese, cheesecakes, etc.) - 942 tons.
In public catering, jelly made from vegetable milk, juices, glycerin and gelatin was widely used. In November, 380 tons of such products were sold. Waste after grinding oats was used to make oatmeal jelly, berry puree was obtained from cranberry waste. A group of scientists from the Forest Engineering Academy and the All-Russian Research Institute of the Sulphite-Alcohol Industry under the leadership of M.Ya. Kalyuzhny developed a technology for the production of nutritional yeast from wood. About 250 kg of yeast were obtained from 1 ton of dry wood. They were sent to the front, some were used in the city in kitchen factories. On November 23, 1941, the city executive committee decided to organize the production of yeast in all districts of the city. The production of vitamin C in the form of an infusion of pine needles was widely organized. Until mid-December, 2 million human doses of vitamin C were prepared and sold 14 . In addition, the food industry of the city mastered and produced food concentrates (cereals, soups), medical glucose, oxalic acid, tannin, carotene.
As already noted, the importation of the basic essential products in December 1941 - early 1942 was minimal. According to rough estimates, Doctor of Biological Sciences Yu.E. Moskalenko, while one resident of the city received no more than 1300 kcal per day. With this diet, a person could live for about a month. The period of maximum malnutrition lasted 3–4 months in the besieged city. The population of Leningrad during this time should have died completely. Why didn't this happen?
The first reason is biological and physiological. In peacetime, with malnutrition, the body's resistance drops, it is susceptible to infections and other diseases. This was not observed in besieged Leningrad. Due to the stressful state, despite malnutrition, the resistance of the human body has increased dramatically. The number of patients with diabetes, gastritis, gastric ulcer, cholecystitis has decreased to a minimum in the city. Even childhood diseases - measles, scarlet fever, diphtheria - have almost disappeared.
The widespread use of food substitutes has played a role in improving human survival. 15 . It is impossible not to take into account the small stocks of products that remained with some part of the population and the possibility of using the market, where even at that time everything was sold and bought.
In the second half of January 1942, in connection with the complete restoration of the Tikhvin-Voibokalo railway section and the improvement of the work of the Ladoga ice route, the delivery of food to Leningrad increased, and the norms for bread for all groups of the population were increased. Compared with January 1942, in February the norms increased by 100 for workers, engineers and employees and by 50 for dependents and children under 12 16 . Since January, the previous supply norm for fats has been restored: workers and engineers - 800 g, employees - 400, dependents - 200 and children under 12 years old - 400. Since February, the same norms for cereals and pasta were also introduced: workers and engineers - 2 kg, employees - 1.5 kg, dependents - 1 kg. In the second half of February and early March, the established norms for all types of foodstuffs began to be fully merchandised.
By decision of the bureau of the city committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the Leningrad City Executive Committee, medical nutrition was organized at increased rates in special hospitals created at factories and plants, as well as in 105 city canteens. The hospitals functioned from January 1 to May 1, 1942, and served 60,000 people. Since the end of April 1942, by the decision of the Leningrad City Executive Committee, the network of canteens for enhanced nutrition has been expanding. Instead of hospitals, 89 of them were created on the territory of factories, plants and institutions. 64 canteens were organized outside the enterprises. Food in these canteens was produced according to specially approved increased standards. From April 25 to July 1, 1942, 234 thousand people used them, of which 69% were workers, 18.5% were employees and 12.5% were dependents. In the first half of 1942, hospitals, and then canteens for enhanced nutrition, played an invaluable role in the fight against hunger, restoring the strength and health of a significant number of patients, which saved thousands of Leningraders from death. This is evidenced by the numerous reviews of the blockade themselves and the data of polyclinics. 17 .
Before the war, 5600 specialists-scientists worked in 146 Leningrad scientific institutions, and more than 85 thousand students studied in 62 universities and thousands of teachers worked 18 . With the establishment of the blockade and the threat of famine, the Leningrad leadership faced the problem of saving scientific and creative teams, which, however, was not always solved in a timely manner and not to the full extent. On March 2, 1942, Deputy Chairman of the Committee for Higher Education, Academician N.G. Brusevich wrote to A.N. Kosygin:
« The evacuation of Leningrad universities is carried out on an insufficiently large scale. There is a fear that by the time the movement on the ice of Lake Ladoga stops (approximately March 20), a significant part of the students, the majority of the teaching staff will remain in Leningrad ... It is necessary to evacuate at least two thousand students, teachers and administrative staff of universities every day. First of all, complete the evacuation of the universities of the defense industry, transport, communications, medicine, as well as the Polytechnic Institute and the State University.”
Kosygin ordered: " Include universities in the evacuation plan from March 11, with the exception of medical institutes. Doctors were left for the needs of the front, as well as in case of epidemics in Leningrad.
The belated decision to evacuate universities exacerbated the tragedy. More than 100 professors and associate professors died of starvation and disease at Leningrad University. The Polytechnic Institute lost 46 doctors and candidates of sciences. Construction Institute - 38. Academic institutions buried 450 employees (33%) during the first blockade winter 19 . Some, very limited, measures were nevertheless taken to alleviate the plight of this part of the townspeople. In January 1942, a hospital for scientists and creative workers began to operate at the Astoria Hotel. In the dining room of the House of Scientists in the winter months, 200 to 300 people ate 20 . On December 26, 1941, the city executive committee instructed the Gastronom office to organize a one-time sale without food cards for home delivery to academicians and corresponding members of the USSR Academy of Sciences: animal butter - 0.5 kg, canned meat or fish - 2 boxes, eggs - 3 dozen, sugar 0.5 kg, cookies - 0.5 kg, chocolate - 0.3 kg, wheat flour - 3 kg and grape wine - 2 bottles 21 .
Higher education institutions opened their own hospitals, where scientists and other university workers could rest for 7–14 days and receive enhanced nutrition, which consisted of 20 g of coffee, 60 g of fat, 40 g of sugar or confectionery, 100 g of sugar. meat, 200 g of cereals, 0.5 eggs, 350 g of bread, 50 g of wine per day, and the products were issued with cutting coupons from food cards 22 .
With the onset of the winter of 1941-1942. and the increase in mortality from exhaustion in Leningrad every day began to increase the number of children who lost their parents. Often, adults - mothers, grandmothers - gave their meager ration of bread to babies in order to support their strength at the cost of their own lives. Party and Komsomol organizations of the city launched a great work to identify orphaned children and place them in orphanages. The besieged newspaper "Change" in the section "Komsomol Chronicle" reported in March 1942:
« The Smolninsky RK Komsomol allocated several brigades to identify street children in the area. Within 5 days, 160 Komsomol activists visited 4,000 apartments in households in the district, identified children who need to be placed in orphanages.23 .
Komsomol girls not only arranged for neglected children in orphanages, but also nursed them. Thus, the girls of orphanage No. 5 appealed through the press to all those working in orphanages with an appeal to raise healthy children, to replace their families. Komsomol members Gordeeva, Teterina, Trofer came to the 5th orphanage when there was nothing but empty, cold and dirty rooms. It was necessary to wash the room, heat it, bring beds, sew mattresses, pillows, linen. Time was running out. Komsomol educators, and there were 9 of them, worked 18 hours a day. In a short time the house was ready to receive little pupils 24 .
By decision of the city executive committee, from January 1942, new orphanages were opened one after another. For 5 months, 85 orphanages were organized in Leningrad, sheltering 30 thousand orphaned children 25 . The leadership of the city and the command of the Leningrad Front sought to provide orphanages with the necessary food. By a resolution of the Military Council of the Front of February 7, 1942, the following monthly norms for supplying orphanages per child were approved: meat - 1.5 kg, fats - 1 kg, eggs - 15 pieces, sugar - 1.5 kg, tea - 10 g, coffee - 30 g , cereals and pasta - 2.2 kg, wheat bread - 9 kg, wheat flour - 0.5 kg, dried fruits - 0.2 kg, potato flour -0.15 kg 26 .
A.N. Kosygin in January - July 1942 was engaged in organizing the supply of the besieged city and the evacuation of its population. In connection with the mass mortality of students of vocational schools, he personally checked the situation with food in one of them. A letter from A.N. Kosygina A.A. Zhdanov on the results of the inspection of the vocational school No. 33 dated February 16, 1942. 27 . The students complained that in the canteen instead of soup liquid burda was given out, cutlets weighed 35 instead of the prescribed 50, sugar was stolen, and fats were not dispensed at all for 4 days. There was no control of the school administration over the dining room, which opened up the possibility of unlimited theft of products. As a result, the students ended up on a starvation diet, their condition worsened.
A.N. Kosygin demanded to establish mandatory control over the nutrition of artisans by the school administration, and to lay food in the boiler with the obligatory presence of the school administration and a representative of the students. The materials for checking school No. 33 were sent to A.N. Kosygin to the city prosecutor. By a court decision, the director of the canteen of the school was sentenced to one year of corrective labor, the cook - to two years in prison.
During the first hungry winter in Leningrad, more than a dozen vocational and factory schools functioned. The radical measures taken to improve nutrition and put things in order at School No. 33 had a positive effect on food, consumer services for students and in other educational institutions.
The evacuation of the population played an important role in solving the food problem. The city evacuation commission began its work on June 29, 1941. Before the blockade was established, mainly children were taken out of the city, as well as workers and employees who were evacuated along with enterprises. From June 29 to August 27, 488,703 people left the city. From September, from the time the blockade was established, until the onset of freeze-up, 33,479 people were taken out by water along Ladoga 28 . On November 22, the ice road across the lake began to work. However, it has not yet been sufficiently equipped and mastered. There were no required number of cars, there was not enough fuel. The weak thin ice often could not withstand the weight of the cars and broke, and by December 6, 126 cars sank on Ladoga. On the way, points of reception and heating of evacuees were not equipped. Therefore, on December 12, 1941, the Military Council of the Leningrad Front suspended the export of the population through Ladoga until further notice. 29 .
Only in the last ten days of January, after the victory over the Nazis near Moscow, did the situation change. The fate of Leningrad was taken up by the government and the State Defense Committee. On January 21, 1942, the Military Council of the Leningrad Front decided to resume the evacuation of the population. It was carried out from the Leningrad station - Finland Station to the Borisova Griva station (on the western coast of Ladoga) by rail and from the Borisova Griva station across the lake to the Zhikharevo station by road. Most of the evacuees walked to Finland Station on foot, carrying their belongings on sleds. 62,500 people (orphanages, vocational schools, university professors, art workers, etc.) were delivered by motor transport to the Finland Station.
Each evacuee received bread in Leningrad on a card for the day ahead, and at the evacuation center at the Finland Station - a lunch containing meat - 75 g, cereals - 70, fats - 40, flour - 20, dry vegetables - 20 and bread - 150. If the train was delayed on the way to Borisova Griva station for more than 1.5 days, the evacuation center of this station fed the evacuees with the same lunch. After crossing Ladoga, at the evacuation centers of Kobona, Lavrovo and Zhikharevo, they also had lunch, in addition, they received 1 kg of bread for the road, 250 g of cookies, 200 g of meat products, and children under 16 years old - a chocolate bar 30 .
According to the city evacuation commission, from January 22 to April 15, 1942, 554,186 people were evacuated along the ice road, including 92,419 students of vocational schools, 12,639 orphans, students, professors, teachers and scientists with families - 37 877 people 31 . The real picture of the evacuation is reflected in the story of the professor of the Leningrad Institute of Railway Engineers D.I. Kargin, who was evacuated in February 1942:
« As we moved towards Vologda, food at the evacuation centers gradually improved, but often took place in conditions far from culture. Only some evacuation centers were well-maintained, and there the food turned out to be the best. Usually, the longest row of people in line, in the open, lined up with their own dishes for soup and porridge. We were given 400 grams of bread a day. In addition, dry rations were given at some evacuation centers, which included various products, such as: bread, white rolls, gingerbread, butter, granulated sugar, sausage, etc. There was no need to talk about hunger. He stayed behind."32 .
But not everyone managed to escape the consequences of malnutrition. Among the evacuees were many seriously ill and weakened. Only at the Finland Station, in Borisova Griva, Kobon, Lavrovo and Zhikharevo, 2,394 people died 33 . They died along the way. It is believed that at least 30 thousand Leningraders are buried on one Vologda land 34 .
In their new places of residence, the evacuated Leningraders, especially children, were surrounded by special attention and care, regardless of which city, people or republic they were sheltered. Leningrad teacher Vera Ivanovna Chernukha tells about the evacuation in the spring of 1942 of 150 children from the 41st orphanage:
« In the village of Rodnikovskaya, Krasnodar Territory, our echelon arrived early in the morning. But residents met Leningraders: there were local teachers and medical workers on the platform. Rooms have already been prepared for the children in the schools of the village, food has been stocked. And what more! Fresh milk, honey, nuts, radishes…”35 .
For the hungry winter of 1941-1942. and three months of the spring of 1942 account for the largest number of deaths from starvation. If in January 1942 96,751 people died, in February - 96,015, in March - 81,507, in April - 74,792, in May - 49,744, then from the summer of 1942 the mortality curve goes down sharply: in June they died 33,716 people, in July - 17,729, in August - 8,967 36 . The decrease in mortality by the middle of 1942 was ensured by the successful operation of the Ice Road of Life, and then the Ladoga military flotilla, and the creation of significant food supplies in the city. In addition, more than a million sick old people, orphans, women with children were evacuated, which made it possible to increase the level of food supply for the residents who remained in the city.
Leningraders in the gardens Postcard. Hood. G.P. Fittingof. Ed. "Art", Leningrad, 1944
In the spring of 1942, the Leningrad City Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the executive committee of the Leningrad City Council set the task for the population of the city to provide themselves with their own vegetables. Empty lands were identified, gardens, parks, squares were taken into account for their use as vegetable gardens. As a result of the organizational work carried out in May, 633 organized subsidiary plots of enterprises and institutions and over 276 thousand individual gardeners began plowing and sowing vegetables. In the spring of 1942, 1,784 hectares were plowed by individual gardeners, 5,833 by subsidiary plots, and 2,220 by state farms of city trusts (9,838 hectares in total), including 3,253 hectares, or 33% of the crops, dug up with shovels. 6,854 ha (69.7%) were sown with vegetables, 1,869 ha (19.0%) with potatoes, 1,115 ha (11.3%) with legumes.
Approximately 25 thousand tons of vegetables were harvested from individual gardens 37 . The vast majority of Leningraders who have individual gardens provided themselves with greenery in the summer and stockpiled vegetables for the winter. The summer garden campaign strengthened and restored the health of hundreds of thousands of people, and this, in turn, contributed to strengthening the defense of the city and the complete defeat of the enemy near Leningrad.
Summer navigation on Ladoga turned out to be more successful than in 1941 in 1942. Extensive dredging, clearing and construction work was carried out in the area of bays and marinas on both sides of the lake, dozens of barges and tugboats were repaired, 44 wooden and metal barges were built , 118 tenders, 2 metal ferries. All this made it possible to multiply the transportation of goods, including food. In July 1942 Ladoga transporters sent up to 7 thousand tons of cargo per day. A total of 21,700 vessels passed through the lake during navigation. They transported to Leningrad 780 thousand tons of various cargoes, including 350 thousand tons of food, almost 12 thousand heads of livestock 38 . The problem of hunger in the besieged city was removed. Leningrad residents began to receive rationed products in the same volume as residents of all cities in the country.
To overcome the consequences of the famine (in October 1942, with the onset of cold weather, 12,699 patients were hospitalized, in November - 14,138), those in need received enhanced nutrition. As of January 1, 1943, before the blockade was broken, 270 thousand Leningraders received in one form or another an increased amount of food compared to the all-Union norms. In addition, 153 thousand people visited canteens with 3 meals a day, for which a significant part of the rationed products was additionally allocated 39 .
The incredible suffering and courage shown by the people of Leningrad during the years of the blockade had no analogue in world history. Fate prepared for Leningrad the fate of one of the main strategic centers, on the stability of which the course of the entire war largely depended. This was also understood in the West. London Radio admitted in 1945: “ The defenders of Leningrad wrote the most remarkable page in the history of the World War, for they, more than anyone else, helped the coming final victory over Germany.40 .
Considering the tragic experience of the Siege of Leningrad, the Soviet delegation, at the final stage of negotiations on the preparation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the autumn of 1948, made a proposal to ban the use of starvation as a method of warfare. Soviet representative to the Commission on Human Rights 3 August 1948 34 Blockade declassified. S. 230. 35 Dayev V. Decree. op. pp. 62–63. 36 Leningrad under siege. S. 591. 37 Ibid. pp. 250–251, 253. 38 On the Road of life. Memories of front-line Ladoga. M., 1980. S. 16, 44. 39 Leningrad under siege. pp. 248, 589. 40 Blockade declassified. S. 8. 41 Lomagin N. Decree. op. S. 274.
