What were the penal units in the Soviet Union?

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

An incredible amount of myths about penal units in the Soviet Union during the Second World War were formed, not without the help of the domestic perestroika cinema. What “new” and “interesting” our compatriots have not learned about penalties over the past 30 years. In fact, with these subdivisions, everything is far from the way individual citizens from the creative intelligentsia are used to portraying it.

1. Why are penalty units needed?

The first step is to understand that penalty units are absolutely normal practice and are somehow present in almost any army in the world.

The essence of the penal formations is extremely simple: in wartime, a soldier convicted of military crimes must be sent to the rear to serve his sentence, or will be left at the front with a respite for the execution of punishment. Both options are highly unacceptable.

In the first case, you lose a potentially useful combatant. In the second case, an unreliable social element may continue to exert a corrupting effect on its unit.

In order to prevent new crimes and protect the unit from accelerated decomposition, it is customary to send soldiers and officers convicted by a military tribunal in combat conditions to penal units. There, the guilty ones will be conditionally isolated from the rest of the army and at the same time will remain useful for the command.

2. Soviet practice of penalty units

In Soviet practice, during the Second World War, penalty companies, penalty battalions, penalty squadrons and separate assault rifle battalions were formed.

The number of the penal company, as a rule, was about 200 people. In fact, these were a kind of elite assault units from among the guilty ones. They were formed from the best people who nevertheless committed some crimes at the front.

Most often, officers and sergeants got there, as an exception, soldiers and corporals were sent to penal companies. Companies were thrown into the most difficult sectors of the front, they were often engaged in reconnaissance in force and assault on heights.

The equipment and armament of the penal companies was comparable to the provision of equipment for the best guards and assault units of the Red Army.

Penalty battalions were created for guilty soldiers. The number of the penal battalion could reach 800 people. In essence, the armament and equipment of these units corresponded to the usual linear rifle units of the red army. Of course, these units were thrown into the most difficult areas.

For guilty pilots, there were penalty squadrons. Since 1943, there were separate assault rifle battalions in the Red Army. These were penal units in a special position. They were thrown into less difficult sectors of the front. Only those who were considered a "potentially unreliable element" got there.

These were soldiers and officers who had been in captivity or had been surrounded for a long time with the proviso that after returning to the active army and passing through the filtration, counterintelligence officers did not have complete confidence in their reliability.

The term of serving a sentence in Soviet penal units could not exceed 3 months. So much time spent in them by those convicted by the tribunal for 10 years.

Convicted persons for 5-8 years received 2 months, and convicts up to 5 years - 1 month. Soldiers of special assault rifle battalions served no more than 2 months. Penalty squadron pilots were sentenced to the number of free sorties, not the number of months.

Earlier it was possible to leave a unit due to an injury requiring hospitalization, as well as at the request of the unit commander for his displayed valor in battle. The pilots could leave the squadron earlier based on the results of the already completed sorties. If a fighter served in a penal unit, then his criminal record was removed.

The officers of the active army commanded the penal formations. Regardless of the rank, all penalties in all divisions served as soldiers.

3. Convicts and civilians in penal companies

As for civilians, in particular, workers in the rear and penal battalions, there are quite a few horror stories about this in the spirit of “sent for being 20 minutes late for work”.

The sending of civilians convicted by a civil court to serve in penal companies was allowed by Soviet legislation as alternative sentencefor minor or moderate ordinary crimes. Inmates in prisons and camps were never sent to penal units.

Former prisoners who ended up in the Red Army during the war years had to first achieve release, for example, for overfulfilling the plan in production. Only after that did they end up in the army, being already full citizens of the USSR, while they were sent to ordinary, and not to penal units.

For all the years of World War II, 34,476,700 people passed through the Red Army. Of these, there were only 427 910 penalties. Thus, about 1.24% of servicemen passed through the penal units during the war years.