Liberation and Retribution: War Crimes and Collaboration in Smolensk Oblast

Abstract

Abstract The first Red Army soldiers who liberated Smolensk in September, 1943 entered a broken world. The ruined city stood empty and the countryside resembled a vast wasteland. Amidst the destruction, Party officials began picking up the pieces and rebuilding Soviet power in the region. The main concern of this study is to understand how this process unfolded by examining reports of local war crime and treason investigations carried out by the Extraordinary State Commission of Smolensk Oblast (Chrezvychainaia gosudarstvennaia komissiia, ChGK). These yet untapped archival materials show that while Soviet investigative and punitive practices affirmed the state’s renewed political authority in Smolensk, their efforts were often constrained by the regime’s postwar reconstruction goals.