Workers of the rear. Workers of the rear of the Great Patriotic War

Recently, they are only spoken of as a social category. List their privileges, periodically complain about a lack of benefits. However, to someone embittered, on the contrary, it seems that these ancient old people and old women receive too much from the state, and in general have been healed in this world. But to spite those ill-starred people are still here, with us, although every year their number is inexorably shrinking. Who are they, workers of the rear?

Some terminology

To this category, Russian legislation includes persons who during the Great Patriotic War (WWII) worked in the rear for at least six months, which was confirmed in their documents. Under the definition of "workers in the rear" are those who are awarded for their work in these years with orders and medals of the USSR - this saves them from having to prove the fact of their work in a different way.

A little arithmetic

The war against fascism ended almost 70 years ago. The same figure determines the average life expectancy in Russia. In other words, most of those who were born at the end of the war are no longer alive. How many of them remained, those who were not just born before, but also could work during the war, forged, without regret, a great victory?

Probably, for a long time already there are no heroes in the world who instead of leaving to fight men went down into mines or tried to plow frozen Siberian soil, then to bake bread for the fighting fighter. Most of them left the world and those who raised the military factories, who were exhausted and half-starved days did not leave the machine tools to provide the army with weapons. Most often, the definition of "workers in the rear of the Great Patriotic War" means children. More precisely, who was a child in those terrible years, but not just lived a normal child's life (however, then it was impossible), but worked in factories, state farms, hospitals, trying to contribute to the overall victory over the enemy.

About the peculiarities of teaching

In the Soviet Union, much attention was paid to the patriotic education of youth on the examples of heroic peers. Every Soviet schoolboy could, as they say, call out at least ten names of the pioneer heroes (Valya Kotik, Lenya Golikov, Zina Portnova, etc.) and tell in detail about their feat. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, much has changed: both views on individual events, and teaching methods, and indeed the Pioneer organization itself did not. Probably, a certain reorganization of views was really needed.

For example, Pavlik Morozov - who is he, is he a hero? Or a traitor to his own family? Or just a snotty, unreasonable boy, entangled in difficult adult games?

To say that childhood is not only carefree, schoolchildren need. It is important to tell that there were also such children - the workers of the rear, whose contribution to the common victory over the enemy is incommensurable with their small age and is truly huge. If this lesson in history is not well understood, there will still be a lot of angry young scumbags, who abuse and deceive the elderly. And later, adults will grow up from them, reproaching old veterans for their cheap privileges.

By the way, about benefits

In the USSR, civilians, working shockly in wartime in the rear, were called in another way - veterans of the war (those who took part in the fighting were called participants in the Second World War). By the end of the 1980s, the total number of participants and veterans of the war had decreased so much that the difference in the privileges assigned to one category or another was gradually going down "to nothing." In 1985, veterans of the war were listed and former partisans who fought in the occupied territories. Like the immediate participants in the WWII battles, the workers of the rear enjoyed certain and quite significant privileges. The list of these benefits and the procedure for obtaining them were the same for all the republics of the USSR.

And then what?

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, each of the former republics itself formulated its attitude to the veterans, she herself made a decision about the privileges that these people owed. Worst of all, those veterans of the war had to end up in the Baltic countries. They not only lost all available benefits - the new authorities called the Soviet soldiers invaders, and some of them even faced prosecution. In most other republics, no one disputed the heroism of veterans, but their standard of living was significantly reduced. Inflation, rising prices and rents, problems with medical care - all this seriously affected the well-being and real capabilities of elderly people.

And how is it in Russia?

In Russia, the greatest achievements of Soviet soldiers (workers in the rear) are not only not questioned; on the contrary, the importance of their heroic deeds is increasingly emphasized year by year, and the victory over fascism itself is more and more marked every time. But have not forgotten behind this abundance of beautiful words and festive salutes of those who, in fact, we owe this victory?

Few more living participants of the labor front are offended. Although formally the definition of war veterans in Russian legislation is reserved for all those who forged victory, but the notion of "workers in the rear" appeared in 2000, the privileges of the latter substantially narrowed. Disappeared, in particular, a significant supplement to the pension, as well as benefits in providing medical care and buying medicines.

It would be untrue to say that they do not care about these people in Russia at all - they are entitled to certain payments and other privileges. But a significant part of the benefits is provided not from the federal budget, but from the municipal budget, and its opportunities in different regions can vary significantly. And payments to veterans are not too great. Heroic labor could be estimated more expensively - the country would hardly have become impoverished!

From memories

Historians and local historians rarely, but remember these people. They talk with them, they ask about time in life not easily, then they publish memories of the war. What do the veteran workers of the rear tell?

Dozens of workers' battalions worked on the approaches to the defensive lines of Stalingrad. A participant of one of them, A.V. Osadchaya, recalled how she and her friends had to work in difficult conditions, to chop frozen ground, constructing anti-tank ditches. From the cold and poor nutrition young bodies froze, covered with abscesses. It was necessary to spend the night right there, in dank dugouts, and in the morning again to work, because there were not enough workers. Another participant, MP Uskova, told how the workers of the rear, in the conditions of the fierce Stalingrad winter, washed their hands in the blood, digging trenches and clearing the railway tracks from snow drifts.

Thousands of such memories can be heard. The importance of what these people were doing is hard to overestimate how impossible it is to imagine the whole burden of the trials they have endured. In Samara in 1996 a monument was erected to the "Underage Workers of the Rear Services of 1941-1945." Grateful Samara ". In this city, which in the war years was one of the main smithies of the country, are well aware of the contribution that ordinary children made to the common pot of victory.

Conclusion

When only the social workers remember the elderly, and even those compelled, this is very insulting. Old age is not a pause before death, but an inevitable life stage, and it should live fully and dignifiedly. Elderly people have done a lot for the prosperity of society, younger generations they owed a lot, and decent people still try to give their debts.

One of the important criteria for judging the state is whether the old people are good in it. Unfortunately, neither Russia, nor its neighbors - the countries of the post-Soviet space - can not brag of special care for the older generation. As we see, not too spoiled and this category of retirees - workers of the rear. And in relation to them to be indifferent and indifferent is simply criminal.