Life in the USSR, especially during WWII in the USSR is a topic I have followed over the past 30-40 years, insofar as it marked a crucial moment in World history, but also in the unraveling of the October Revolution and the Stalin gang's eventual defeat of that revolution's results. At the same time, for most North Americans, the decisive role the USSR played in defeating Hitler and Tojo, and the level of sacrifice and destruction. One of every seventeen people were killed in the war by the official figures which were kept secret for decades after the war and are thought by many experts to be less than the actual casualties, especially if one were to add those murdered by the repressive actions and awful blunders that accompanied the most practical operations under the Stalin regime, let alone total war. This book is good insofar as it mentions not only the heroism of ordinary, and not so ordinary Soviet women called into the war, but discusses the way they were abused and suppressed and sometimes replaced by more pliant KGB doubles for publicity purposes during and after the war,. It could say more about the rampant sexual abuse of both women serving and women in general which became a special perk for the Soviet officer corp and discuss more of what the conflict would have been for Red Army women would have been with the massive sexual abuse the Soviet Army inflicted on women as it entered Germany, Poland, Hungary, and other countries.

Author Vinogradova tells how over a half million Soviet Union women not only served in the military during World War II, but were fully integrated into all services. Based on extensive interviews, archives, books, and other source materials, this book touches on female fighter and bomber pilots and focuses on snipers during and after the war. Proficiency meant life for some and death for others.

Women did not receive special treatment. They fought until wounded, killed, or captured. Metals were award based on the number of kills. Regardless of sex, Germans killed these battle-hardened soldiers or sent them to concentration camps. At some point as the front lines move, the mood changes from defense, to surviving, to revenge.

At wars end, the regime treated released prisoners of war as enemies of Russia. The war decimated nearly 97% of the male population born between 1923 and 1925 in Russian. Many times the only returning soldier to a village was female. Villagers shunned female soldiers or labelled them unclean or lesbian. Returning to traditional roles, the women were either tormented by the lives they took, or simply accepted what was and faded into the background.

Readers who questions the role of females in the military and their ability to serve should read this book. These Russian women are not the first to serve in active military combat. The author has put names and faces to a select group whose best description may be that they were just ordinary women that did their best in combat.

There are some mislabeled illustrations in the advanced readers copy. A list of personnel, endnotes, and bibliography are provided.

I received this book free through Net Galley. Although encouraged as a courtesy to provide feedback to the publisher, I was under no obligation to write a review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.