World War II Veterans

Historically, the first category of citizens of the USSR who were presented with special rights and privileges in connection with their participation in the Great Patriotic War were Heroes of the Soviet Union and invalids of the Great Patriotic War . The overwhelming majority of Heroes of the Soviet Union appeared during the Great Patriotic War : 91.2% of the total number of awarded persons. For the exploits accomplished during the years of World War II, 11 thousand 657 people were awarded a high rank (3051 of them posthumously), including 107 twice (7 of them posthumously). Among the Heroes of the Soviet Union, participants in the Great Patriotic War - 90 women (49 of them posthumously). Announcements on the right of these citizens to extraordinary services hung from the first post-war years in all public institutions, at communications and consumer services enterprises, in savings and railway cash desks, etc.

Even before the war, a decree of the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR dated April 23, 1930 introduced the "Code of Concessions for Military Personnel and Military Personnel of the Red Army and Members of Their Families", which gave the legislator a starting point for adopting laws and decrees specifying this code. At the same time, some benefits were provided not only to the military personnel themselves, but also to members of their families. An example here is the order of the Minister of War of the USSR No. 20 dated March 10, 1952, which introduced the "Instructions on the procedure for the selection and direction of servicemen, members of their families, pensioners and civilian employees in the sanatorium and rest house of the USSR Ministry of War" ^[1] . This document determined which of the family members of the military could also be granted the right to treatment in military sanatoria, what part of the cost of sanatorium tickets (permits) they could pay for this, etc.

However, over the course of 20 years, the composition of this social category was limited only to military personnel and civilian employees who served in the Soviet Army during the war years. A large-scale expansion of the scope of benefits and the circle of persons to whom they were granted began with the advent of Leonid Brezhnev . On the eve of the 20th anniversary of the Victory, on March 6, 1965, the Council of Ministers of the USSR adopted Decree No. 140 " On the expansion of benefits for invalids of the Patriotic War and family members of military personnel who died in the Great Patriotic War ." Two weeks later, by Decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR of May 20, 1965 No. 401, the benefits previously established for invalids of World War II were also extended to “other invalids from among the servicemen who became invalids as a result of injury, contusion or mutilation, received during the defense of the USSR or during execution other duties of military service, or due to illness associated with being at the front ” ^[2] .

With a further expansion of the composition of this preferential category, home workers included in the medal “For Valiant Labor in the Great Patriotic War” and medals for the defense of a number of hero cities ( Kiev , Moscow , Odessa , Sevastopol , Stalingrad ) and the regions of the USSR ( Caucasus , Arctic ).

The category of blockaders is especially distinguished in this series - at first it included only residents of the city who were awarded the medal “For the Defense of Leningrad” , subsequently - other persons who worked at the enterprises of Leningrad - first with the proviso “throughout the period of the blockade”, and then those who was evacuated or seconded from the city to the mainland until the end of the blockade. Currently, the category of blockade includes all persons who managed to survive in Leningrad during the years of the blockade, who have lived in it for at least four months (see the sign "Resident of the besieged Leningrad" ).

The expansion of the circle of people who enjoyed the benefits deserved during wartime made it necessary to distinguish between participants and disabled people of the war (that is, those whose rights were directly involved in the fighting), on the one hand, and war veterans (that is, for the most part, civilians for the period of the Second World War), on the other. At the same time, by the end of the 1980s, the absolute number of these categories of citizens was reduced so much that the state that had previously existed differences between them in terms of benefits was gradually leveled out. By the time of the collapse of the USSR, the interpretation of the concept of "veteran of the Great Patriotic War", thus, expanded. Beginning in 1978, veterans and partisans, in terms of benefits, were equated with civilian personnel of the Soviet Army.

The benefits for veterans of the Great Patriotic War were the same on the territory of each of the 15 Union republics of the USSR . After the collapse of the Union, veterans living in the Baltic republics found themselves in the worst situation: they not only were deprived of the benefits they deserved during the war, but also became, in some cases, objects of prosecution by the new authorities. Common to all war veterans was a sharp decline in their standard of living due to inflation, rising prices, the transition to paid medical care and rising rents, with the attendant loss of actual benefits that veterans traditionally used.

In accordance with the legislation of the Russian Federation, such are persons who took part in hostilities to defend the Fatherland or to provide military units of the army in the areas of hostilities; persons who served in the army or worked in the rear during the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945 (hereinafter referred to as the Great Patriotic War) for at least six months, excluding the period of work in the temporarily occupied territories of the USSR , or awarded with orders or medals of the USSR for service and selfless labor during the Great Patriotic War.

An exception is made for the NKVD and the NKGB : veterans of the Great Patriotic War are “ military personnel, including those transferred to the reserve (resignation), individuals of the rank and file of the internal affairs bodies and state security agencies, soldiers and command personnel of fighter battalions, platoons and defense units of the people, who took part in military operations to combat enemy landing forces and military operations together with military units that were part of the army during the Great Patriotic War, and also took part in military operations to eliminate the nationalist underground in the territories of Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia ”from January 1, 1944 to December 31, 1951 ^[3] .

•   Russia - 75.495 people (2019) (combatants and disabled) ^[4]
•   Ukraine - 20,000 people (2019) ^[5]
•   Belarus - 5.955 people (2019) ^[6]
•   Latvia - 1,552 people (2019) ^[7]
•   Kazakhstan - 1,339 people (2019) ^[8]
•   Uzbekistan - 878 people (2019) ^[9]
•   Turkmenistan - 600 people (2019) ^[10]
•   Georgia - 492 people (2019) ^[11]
•   Moldova - 412 people (2019) ^[12]
•   Azerbaijan - 400 people. (2019) ^[13]
•   Lithuania - 400 people (2019) ^[14]
•   Estonia - 335 people (2019) ^[15]
•   Armenia - 320 people (2019) ^[16]
•   Kyrgyzstan - 315 people (2019) ^[17]
•   Tajikistan - 242 people (2019) ^[18]
•   Abkhazia - 19 people (2019) ^[19]
•   South Ossetia - 14 people (2019) ^[20]
•   Transnistrian Moldavian Republic - 54 people (2019) ^[21]

• World War II Veterans in Israel

• Melnikov I. Unnecessary front-line soldiers (Link unavailable)

• Memorial is a generalized data bank containing information about the dead and missing participants of the Great Patriotic War
• “The feat of the people in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945” is a generalized data bank containing documents from the Archive of Award Affairs and the Archive of Documents for the operational management of military operations of the People’s Commissariat of Defense of the USSR .