<P> The Soviet Union comprised over 150 different peoples, but Russians comprised the majority of the Red Army and Russian was the language of command . The Red Army had very few ethnic units as the policy was one of sliianie (blending) in which men from the non-Russian groups were assigned to units with Russian majorities . One of the few exceptions to this rule were the Cossack units together with the troops from the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, who however were few in number . The experience of combat tended to bind the men regardless of their language or ethnicity together with one Soviet veteran recalling: "We were all bleeding the same blood". Despite a history of anti-Semitism in Russia, Jewish veterans serving in the frontovik units described anti-Semitism as rare, instead recalling a sense of belonging . During the first six months of Operation Barbarossa, the Wehrmacht and the SS had a policy of shooting all of the "Asiatics" (a term which was defined to include all Red Army personal who looked Asian), commissars, Jews and Georgians serving in the Red Army who were taken prisoner by German forces . For this reason, Georgians, Jews and the various Asian peoples like the Kalmyks, the Buryats, the Kazakhs, the Kyrgyz, etc. fought especially fiercely . During the war, the atheist propaganda was toned down and Eastern Orthodox priests blessed units going into battle, though chaplains were not allowed . However, Muslims from Central Asia, the Caucasus, the Volga and the Crimea were allowed to practice their religion discreetly, though like the Eastern Orthodox no chaplains were allowed . Most soldiers carried lucky talismans . Despite the official atheism, many soldiers wore crosses around their necks and crossed themselves in the traditional Eastern Orthodox manner before going into battle, through the British historian Catherine Merridale cautioned these were more "totemic" gestures meant to ensure good luck rather than expressions of real faith . One of the most popular talismans was the poem Wait for Me by Konstantin Simonov, which he wrote in October 1941 for his fiancée Valentina Serova . The popularity of Wait for Me was such that almost all ethnic Russians in the Red Army knew the poem by heart, and carried a copy of the poem together with photographs of their girlfriends or wives back home to reflect their desire to return to their loved ones . </P> <P> "Political work" done by politruks and kommissars took much of the soldier's spare time as at least one hour every day was given to political indoctrination into Communism for soldiers who not engaged in combat . The term Nazi was never used to describe the enemy as the term was an acronym for National - Sozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (National Socialist German Workers' Party) as the politruks and kommissars found explaining why the enemy called themselves National Socialists to be too confusing for the frontoviks . The preferred terms for the enemy were fascists, Gitlerits (Hitlerites - Russian has no H), Germanskii and nemetskiy (a derogatory Russian term for Germans). The commissars had the duty of monitoring the officers for any sign of disloyalty and a network of informers known as seksots within the ranks . In October 1942, the system of dual command, which dated back to the Russian Civil War, where the officers shared authority with the commissars, was abolished and henceforward only officers had the power of command . Many commissars after the Stalin's Decree 307 of 9 October 1942 were shocked to find how much they were hated by the officers and men . The commissars now become the politruks or deputy commanders for political affairs . The politruks no longer had the power of command, but still evaluated both officers and men for their political loyalty, carried out political indoctrination and had the power to order summary executions of anyone suspected of cowardice or treason . Such executions were known as devyat gram (nine grams - a reference to the weight of a bullet), pustit v rakhod (to expend someone) or vyshka (a shortened form of vysshaya mera nakazanija - extreme penalty). Despite these fearsome powers, many of the frontoviks were often openly contemptuous of the politruks if subjected to excessively long boring lectures on the finer points of Marxism--Leninism and officers tended to win conflicts with the poltitruks as military merit started to count more in the Great Patriotic War than did political zeal . Relations between the officers and men were usually good with junior officers in particular being seen as soratnik (comrade in arms) as they lived under the same conditions and faced the same dangers as the frontovik . Officers usually had only a high school education as very few had gone to university, and coming from the same social milieu as their men ensured that they could relate to them . The frontovik usually addressed their company commanders as Batya (father). </P> <P> The Soviets repulsed the important German strategic southern campaign and, although 2.5 million Soviet casualties were suffered in that effort, it permitted the Soviets to take the offensive for most of the rest of the war on the Eastern Front . </P> <P> Stalin personally told a Polish general requesting information about missing Polish officers that all of the Poles were freed, and that not all could be accounted because the Soviets "lost track" of them in Manchuria . After Polish railroad workers found the mass grave, the Nazis used the massacre to attempt to drive a wedge between Stalin and the other Allies, including bringing in a European commission of investigators from twelve countries to examine the graves . In 1943, as the Soviets prepared to retake Poland, Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels correctly guessed that Stalin would attempt to falsely claim that the Germans massacred the victims . As Goebbels predicted, the Soviets had a "commission" investigate the matter, falsely concluding that the Germans had killed the PoWs . The Soviets did not admit responsibility until 1990 . </P>

What happened to the soviet union in 1941