Though astonishing industrial output was achieved amid chronic hunger, it would be mistaken to idealise this: production of a Soviet aero engine required five times as many man hours as its U.S. counterpart. Yet the evacuation represented part of what a British intelligence officer once called “the Russian genius for piecemeal improvisation.” Another feature of total war was the wholesale deportation of minorities whose loyalty was deemed suspect. Stalin accepted the drain on vital transport resources needed to remove—for instance—74,225 “Volga Germans” from their own little republic to remote
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