Soviet airmen's membership in the Communist Party?

[Dénes Bernád]

As a 'side-kick' topic to the German airmen's membership in the Nazi Party, featured on the Luftwaffe side of this forum, I would like to learn about the details of the Soviet airmen's membership in the Communist Party. How frequent and desired was this membership among flying personnel of the VVS?
Was such membership, or clear display of pro-Party attitude "frowned upon" by other colleagues, as it appears to have been the case in the Luftwaffe?

NB, I would like to keep this thread clean from any flame, or off-topic posts (just as the aforementioned Luftwaffe thread is).

Thanks,

[Laurent Rizzotti]

I don't know about the Soviet airforce in particular, but most of the Soviet accounts of WWII insist on the fact that Soviet heroes were members of the communist Party or of the Konsomol (youth organization of the Party). Then the question is: did they only tell about communist heroes and ignore the others, did the communits behave more heroically than the others, or did hero be allowed to join the Party ? I believe that the 3 are at least partly true.

I remember reading somewhere that it was possible for soldiers to join the Party on the frontline, and that it was frequently done. My understanding is that being a Party member certainly made the life easier in USSR, and during the war this "front joining" allowed people to join that would have never had this opportunity in civilian life.

There certainly was no interdiction to join the Party for military, as in the German military forces.

[Andrey Dikov]

>How frequent and desired was this membership among flying personnel of the VVS?

A membership was some kind of natural next stage of your life.

As for desired... I think that it looked 'strange' if you was a good and seasoned pilot and you're not a member.

During a war the content of CP changed radically. Before the war, CP wasn't so big and consisted much of old revolutionists and party functionaires. As the war started they generally became Komissars. So on early stages there was some kind of irony attitude to those communsits/komissars who ruled the situation, but generally they had no military education or any other kind of education except party one. In case of aviation these komissars were not even pilots.

As far the war united the society, soothed the affect of revolution, collectivization and purges, and more and more frontline soldiers and officers joined the party, its content changed step by step. A CP membership became some kind of honour -more and more brave and talented people became members.


>Was such membership, or clear display of pro-Party attitude "frowned upon" by other colleagues, as it appears to have been the case in the Luftwaffe?

Generally not. Don't forget the difference between those two ideologies. In common words, Nazi ideology divided people as Germans and non-Germans, Communist one - as 'good' people and 'bad'.

[Jens]

In Woroshejkins 728th IAP mostly all pilots and technicians were member of party or komsomol in mid of 1943.

In general: officers were more party members than seargants, generals more than officers.

[Nikita Egorov]

Starting from beginning of the war and up to the end of 1942 people, who was in charge of ideological work had even different rank system. This happened because communist organisation in army had a so colled "two way controll system". Thus, having regimental commander at the head of regiment was not enough and politruk polka (who oftenly had a rank of politruk or starshiy politruk) also supervised ideological work. By the end of 1942 all this "party ranks" were dropped. This was linked to major reorganisation in VVS. All "party ranks" were made ordinary army ranks. As an example "Batalyonnyi Komissar" became "major". Many personalities obtained equal army ranks and became regimental commanders, escadrilya commanders and occupied other command positions. At the same time positions of "political officers" remained and their duties were carried by the same people, who has ideological background or education.
As regards to membership in the communist party. This was cosidered as great honor and surely the majority of commanders were members. Membership also could be given as a sort of award to distinguished pilots. A true hero must be a member of party only in this case his name was subjected to wide spread popularity. Otherwise, and there are lots of examples, real front pilots, who had victories and vast combat experience, but also disciplinary or other "problems" were ignored in terms of awards or commemoration because of their non party status.

[Franek Grabowski]

Privet Nikita
Judging by PPAF, party membership was a key to further career, promotion depending on it. It seems there was some opposition against politruks in the Red AF as at some point it was demanded politruk must have been a combat aircrew. Also, they were not that much liked - I have documents mentioning incidents of beating and threatening with a gun in Soviet manned units of PPAF.
Also, I have heard that party membership was popular because families would have been noticed about deaths of party members.