“In the Interests of Concentrating All Civil and Military Power and the Establishment of the Strictest Order...”: the Phenomenon of City Defense Committees During the Great Patriotic War
Journal: Istoriya
Year: 2025

During the Great Patriotic War, in order to combine the efforts of party and Soviet bodies, law enforcement and military structures to mobilize resources to help the active army and establish the strictest order in the regions close to the front, emergency authorities — city defense committees — operated in 80 cities of the USSR. The article shows that they were mainly created in two stages — in the autumn of 1941 and in the summer — autumn of 1942, when the situation on the Soviet — German fron