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''Shtrafbats'' (russian: штрафбат, ) were
Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...
penal battalions that fought on the Eastern Front in
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
. The ''shtrafbats'' were greatly increased in number by
Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretar ...
in July 1942 via
Order No. 227 Order No. 227 () was an order issued on 28 July 1942 by Joseph Stalin, who was acting as the People's Commissar of Defence. It is known for its line "Not a step back!" (, ''Ni shagu nazad!''), which became the primary slogan of the Soviet press i ...
(Директива Ставки ВГК №227). Order No. 227 was a desperate effort to re-instill discipline after the panicked routs of the first year of combat with Germany. The order—popularized as the "Not one step back!" (Ни шагу назад!, Ni shagu nazad!) Order—introduced severe punishments, including summary execution, for unauthorized retreats.Tolstoy 1981 In his order, Stalin also mentioned
Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...
's successful use of penal battalions (known as '' Strafbataillon'') as a means to ensure obedience among regular
Wehrmacht The ''Wehrmacht'' (, ) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the ''Heer'' (army), the '' Kriegsmarine'' (navy) and the ''Luftwaffe'' (air force). The designation "''Wehrmacht''" replaced the previo ...
units.


Organization

Pursuant to Order No. 227, the first penal battalions were originally planned at 800 men; penal companies were also authorized, consisting of between 150 and 200 men per company.Suvorov 1982 In addition to the battalions already serving with Armies, other battalions, subordinated to
Front Front may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Films * ''The Front'' (1943 film), a 1943 Soviet drama film * ''The Front'', 1976 film Music * The Front (band), an American rock band signed to Columbia Records and active in the 1980s and e ...
s (the equivalent of Army Groups), were introduced. The first penal battalion deployed under the new policy was sent to the Stalingrad Front on August 22, 1942, shortly before German troops reached the
Volga The Volga (; russian: Во́лга, a=Ru-Волга.ogg, p=ˈvoɫɡə) is the longest river in Europe. Situated in Russia, it flows through Central Russia to Southern Russia and into the Caspian Sea. The Volga has a length of , and a catchm ...
river. It consisted of 929 disgraced officers convicted under Order No. 227 who had been demoted to the lowest enlisted rank and assigned to the penal battalion. After three days of assaults against the Germans, only 300 remained alive. The order entitled 'Status of Penal Units of the Army' (''Положение о штрафных батальонах действующей армии'') of November 26, 1942, by
Georgiy Zhukov Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov ( rus, Георгий Константинович Жуков, p=ɡʲɪˈorɡʲɪj kənstɐnʲˈtʲinəvʲɪtɕ ˈʐukəf, a=Ru-Георгий_Константинович_Жуков.ogg; 1 December 1896 – ...
(then a Deputy CommanderкРЩ-in-Chief), formally standardized Soviet penal units. Penal battalions or ''shtrafbats'' were set at 360 men per battalion, and were commanded by mid-range and senior Red Army officers and political officers ('' politruks''). Penal companies (штрафная рота, 100 to 150 per unit) were commanded by sergeants (
NCOs A non-commissioned officer (NCO) is a military officer who has not pursued a commission. Non-commissioned officers usually earn their position of authority by promotion through the enlisted ranks. (Non-officers, which includes most or all enli ...
) and
private Private or privates may refer to: Music * " In Private", by Dusty Springfield from the 1990 album ''Reputation'' * Private (band), a Denmark-based band * "Private" (Ryōko Hirosue song), from the 1999 album ''Private'', written and also recorde ...
s. Penal units consisted of two types of personnel: permanent and temporary. Permanent personnel were staff officers, company commanders, platoon leaders, political officers, and other junior commanders. Temporary personnel were the ''shtrafniki'' (punishees) who were sent to the unit for their crimes or wrongdoings in order to redeem themselves with their service. In some penal units like the 8th Detached Penal (Officer) Battalion, platoons sometimes had up to 50 men, companies comprised 300 men, and the battalion could be as big as 850 men; which implies that a penal battalion was sometimes larger than a regular rifle battalion of the Red Army. Note that on paper, the battalion was to be commanded by a Colonel with two deputies, a chief of staff, and a political officer. The companies were to be commanded by Majors and their platoons by Captains.Pyl'cyn 2006 This is probably because in this instance, the ''shtrafniki'' consisted of former officers of the Red Army. The total number of people convicted to penal units from September 1942 to May 1945 was 422,700. Very few of them were known to have survived the war.


Categories

Men ordinarily subject to penal military unit service included: * Those convicted of desertion or cowardice under Order No. 227. While cowardice under fire was sometimes punished with instant execution, soldiers or officers in rear areas suspected of having a "reluctance to fight" could (and frequently were) summarily stripped of rank and reassigned to a ''shtrafbat'' under Order 227. * Soviet
Gulag The Gulag, an acronym for , , "chief administration of the camps". The original name given to the system of camps controlled by the GPU was the Main Administration of Corrective Labor Camps (, )., name=, group= was the government agency in ...
labor camp inmates.


Infantry battalions

Penal battalion service in infantry roles was the most common use of ''shtrafniki'', and viewed by many Soviet prisoners as tantamount to a death sentence. The term of service in infantry penal battalions and companies was from one to three months (the maximum term was usually applied to those qualifying for the death penalty, the standard punishment for Order No. 227). Standard rates of conversion of imprisonment terms into penal battalion terms existed. Convicts sentenced to infantry units were eligible for commutation of sentence and assignment to a Red Army line unit if they either suffered a combat injury (the crime was considered to be "cleansed in blood") or had accomplished extremely heroic deeds in combat. They could also theoretically receive military decorations for outstanding service and if released were considered fully rehabilitated, though those suspected of political disloyalties remained marked men and often continued to be persecuted after the war's end. Different commanders had different attitudes when releasing the shtrafniks from the unit and returning them to their regular units. 65th Army commander General
Pavel Batov Pavel Ivanovich Batov (russian: Па́вел Ива́нович Ба́тов; – April 19, 1985) was a senior Red Army general during the Second World War and afterwards, twice Hero of the Soviet Union. Batov fought in World War I, where he ...
only rehabilitated shtrafniks who were killed or wounded in action and used the remaining shtrafniks until the end. General
Alexander Gorbatov Alexander Vasilyevich Gorbatov (russian: Алекса́ндр Васи́льевич Горба́тов; 21 March 1891 – 7 December 1973) was a Russian and Soviet officer who served as an officer in the Imperial Russian Army during the Fi ...
released all shtrafniks who had bravely fought in a battle, regardless of whether they were wounded or not.Pyl'cyn 2006


Air force

Pilots or gunners serving in air force penal squadrons were at a marked disadvantage in obtaining the remission of sentence via a combat injury since the nature of air combat usually meant that any injury was fatal. Pilots received no credit for missions flown, and were normally kept in service until they were killed in action. Former Soviet Air Force pilot Artyom Afinogenov recalled the use of air force penal squadrons near Stalingrad: The death rate among gunners serving in penal squadrons was exceptionally high. While prisoners assigned as gunners could theoretically clear their sentences after surviving ten missions, like the infantry they were frequently transferred to penal mine-clearing units before reaching this total.


Combat service

Pursuant to Order No. 227, any attempt to retreat without orders, or even a failure to advance was punished by barrier troops ('zagraditel'nye otriady') or "anti-retreat" detachments of the Soviet special organization known as
SMERSH SMERSH (russian: СМЕРШ) was an umbrella organization for three independent counter-intelligence agencies in the Red Army formed in late 1942 or even earlier, but officially announced only on 14 April 1943. The name SMERSH was coined by Josep ...
(''Smert shpionam''), Russian for "Death to spies". Blocking detachments positioned at the rear would use heavy-handed discouragement towards retreat, but the most likely way that a soldier or officer would interact with a barrier troop was not through being cut down by a Maxim, but through arrest and drumhead court martial.David M. Glantz, Colossus Reborn: The Red Army at War, 1941-1943 (Lawrence, Kansas: University of Kansas Press, 2005 As a result, with nowhere else to go, the penal battalions usually advanced in a frenzy, running forwards until they were killed by enemy minefields, artillery, or heavy machine-gun fire. If the men survived and occupied their objective, they were rounded up and used again in the next assault. In some cases, shtrafniks performed their duty very well even though there were no barrier troops blocking the unit's rear.Pyl'cyn 2006 The battalions were headed by staffs or ordinary soldiers and officers. While out of the line, discipline was enforced by an armed guard company, backstopped by
NKVD The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (russian: Наро́дный комиссариа́т вну́тренних дел, Naródnyy komissariát vnútrennikh del, ), abbreviated NKVD ( ), was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union. ...
or SMERSH detachments. Staff and guards were highly paid and got special pension benefits for their unpleasant and sometimes dangerous work. During the war, Soviet penal units were widely employed. Some units achieved considerable fame. The simultaneous formation of penal units and ancillary rearguard blocking troops in Order No. 227 has occasionally led to a modern misconception that penal units were rearguarded by regular units of the Red Army. Although the practice of using regular army troops as a rearguard or blocking force was briefly implemented, it was soon discovered that the rearguard did not always carry out their orders with regards to penal unit personnel who retreated or fled from the Germans. Consequently, until the end of the war, the task of preventing unauthorized withdrawal of penal unit personnel from the battlefield was handled by the anti-retreat SMERSH detachments of the Soviet Red Army.


See also

* Barrier troops, used by the
Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army ( Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, afte ...
to prevent panic or unauthorized withdrawal by front line soldiers. * Strafbattalion, the prisoner battalions in the German ''
Wehrmacht The ''Wehrmacht'' (, ) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the ''Heer'' (army), the '' Kriegsmarine'' (navy) and the ''Luftwaffe'' (air force). The designation "''Wehrmacht''" replaced the previo ...
'' during World War II.


Notes


References

*Conquest, Robert, ''Kolyma: The Arctic Death Camps'', Methuen Press, (1978) *Hatch, Gardner N., ''American Ex-prisoners of War: Non Solum Armis,''
Turner Publishing Company Turner Publishing Company is an American independent book publisher based in Nashville, Tennessee. The company is in the top 101 independent publishing companies in the U.S. as compiled bBookmarket.com and has been named four times to ''Publish ...
, (1988), *Krivosheev, G.F. ''Soviet Casualties and Combat Losses in the Twentieth Century'', London, Greenhill Books, 1997, , available online (in Russian

*Lebed, Alexander (Gen.), ''My Life and My Country'',
Regnery Publishing Regnery Publishing is a politically conservative book publisher based in Washington, D.C. The company was founded by Henry Regnery in 1947, and is now a division of radio broadcaster Salem Media Group. It is led by President & Publisher Thomas ...
(1997) *Manazeev, Igor, ''A 'Penal' Corps on the Kalinin Front'',
Journal of Slavic Military Studies ''The Journal of Slavic Military Studies'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal that publishes articles relating to military affairs of Central and Eastern European Slavic nations, including their history and geopolitics, as well as boo ...
, Vol. 15, Issue 3, September 2002 *Mawdsley, Evan, ''The Stalin Years: The Soviet Union 1929–1953'', Manchester University Press (2003), *Pyl'cyn, Aleksandr, ''Penalty Strike: The Memoirs of a Red Army Penal Company Commander, 1943–45'', Stackpole Books (2006), *Suvorov, Viktor, '' Inside the Soviet Army'', Hamish Hamilton (1982), *Tolstoy, Nikolai, ''Stalin's Secret War'', New York:
Holt, Rinehart & Winston Holt McDougal is an American publishing company, a division of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, that specializes in textbooks for use in high schools. The Holt name is derived from that of U.S. publisher Henry Holt (1840–1926), co-founder of the ...
(1981),


External links


Yefim Golbraikh memoirs, including his serving commander of a penal company
{{in lang, ru Red Army units and formations of World War II Law of war Penal units