Evacuation of Livestock in the Stalingrad Region in 1941–1944

Introduction. The unsuccessful beginning of the Great Patriotic War required the evacuation of enterprises, collective farms, MTS, state farms, population, and livestock from the western regions of the country. Methods and materials. Historical facts are investigated on the basis of the principles of historicism and objectivity. The article uses problem-chronological and comparative-historical methods. The article is based on the documents of the joint meetings of the bureau of the Stalingrad regional committee of the All-Union Communist Party of the All- Union Communist Party of the All-Union regional committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the executive committee of the regional Council of Workers’ Deputies, the livestock department of the regional committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, and other materials. Analysis. The evacuation of livestock in the Stalingrad region took place in two stages. At the first stage in 1941, livestock from the western parts of the country was driven through the territory of the region, some of which was placed in all rural areas of the region. At the same stage in November 1941, under the conditions of a difficult situation at the front and approaching winter, the oblast leadership decided to move public livestock (except for working livestock) from the right bank of the Don River to winter in Western Kazakhstan. The second stage of evacuation took place in the summer of 1942 during the Stalingrad region battle, when livestock from the neighboring regions, as well as from the western districts of the region, which were threatened by occupation, and frontline districts began to arrive to the territory of the region again. Re-evacuation of the public herd began after the victorious conclusion of the Battle of the Volga and took place as the occupied territory was liberated from the spring of 1943 to mid-1944. Results. Evacuation deprived the enemy of millions of heads of the public herd and made it possible to increase the supply of livestock products to the state. At the same time, the farms of the Stalingrad region, which received the evacuated livestock, due to the lack of fodder and livestock facilities, could not create proper conditions for them. This would eventually lead to exhaustion, increased morbidity, and high animal mortality in all districts of the Stalingrad region. By the beginning of 1944, in comparison with 1941, the number of horses decreased 2.5 times, cattle 1.7 times, sheep and goats 2.4 times, and pigs 5.8 times.