Scholarly research on the history of Soviet society during the Stalinist era often excludes the wartime period and Russian territory under Nazi occupation. In his book Soviet Russians under Nazi occupation, Johannes Due Enstad describes this tendency as “almost a pause between pre- and post-war Stalinism” (p. 2) and therefore presents a study, which can be regarded as a case study of the experience of Russia’s Northwestern peasantry in this period. Enstad’s study is situated within studies focussing on the Soviet citizens’ experience in occupied Ukraine, Belarus or the Baltic countries. This perspective is especially fruitful since the Russian Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR) functioned as the political core of all Soviet states. Its standing and defense during WWII was therefore regarded as especially crucial.

In line with Stephen Kotkin, Enstad argues that “ordinary people strove to belong to Stalinist society” (p. 7) and to fit in by hoping for the positive sides of Bolshevism. However, he highlights that in the countryside the “regime patiently failed to secure popular legitimacy” (p. 8), which is especially important since the peasantry made up two thirds of the entire Soviet population when Nazi Germany invaded Soviet Russia. This is ultimately the reason why Enstad chose Northwest Russia as his case study, since its population was predominantly rural and therefore “typically Soviet” (p. 12). The territory, which is subject to this study, runs along the Eastern front of 1941 and 1942 in Northwest Russia, between Moscow and Leningrad, including villages and cities such as Pskov, Luga, Novgorod, Dno, Opochka, as well as Pushkin and other suburbs of Leningrad. It was inhabited by about 1.9 million people but was agriculturally and industrially poor, hence of little economic significance for the occupiers.

The main themes and questions Enstad aims to answer in his book evolve around the idea that political and idealistic loyalties are fragile when patriotism is ambiguous due to uncertain life conditions. With his book, Enstad attempts to explore how “Soviet society lived through the Great Patriotic War.” (p. 2) In doing so, he wants to investigate how the northwestern Russian peasantry experienced the upheaval of war, invasion and occupation and how they then related to those “old Soviet masters still present in the shape of partisans” (p. 5), who proclaimed a Soviet victory. Enstad questions whether the Russian peasantry patriotically resisted German occupation since a “substantial part of the population […] actively supported or passively acquiesced German rule” (p. 5). He argues that they did so because many experienced improvements in their life conditions, especially due to the dissolution of the kolkhozes and the “revival of the Orthodox Church” (p. 5). Until the end of 1943, the peasantry of northwest Russia “tended to support German power rather than the Soviet government” because of material, political and patriotic reasons and lastly because of “calculated pragmatism”, which Enstad describes as “a strategy of heeding the stronger power, shifting one’s loyalties when needed.” (p. 6)

Enstad’s book is structured in eight chapters accompanied by a chronology of military events and maps and photographs from both German and Russian archives. The author drew from an impressive variety of source material, including official records, oral testimonies, post-Soviet and post-war memoirs as well as contemporary and war-time diaries.

In the first chapter, Enstad takes the 1930s as a point of departure and explores “the impact of pre-war Stalinism in northwest Russia” (p. 15). Following a chronological order, Enstad addresses the initial hopes and fears of the Russian population in response to the Nazi invasion in the second chapter. He recounts how Soviet institutions were quickly abandoned since patriotic sentiment was too ambiguous: the possible defeat of Bolshevism, the dismantle of collective farms and a new political order as the end result of German victory seemed more promising. The third chapter thematises the annihilation of those ethnic groups casted out by Nazi Germany: Jews, Roma, prisoners of war and disabled people – those labelled as "unworthy of life" (p. 70) under the T4 ‘Euthanasia’ programme. Within the subchapter on "The Holocaust in Northwest Russia" (pp. 60–65), the author undertakes an in-depth research on the prosecution of Jews in the cities and towns of Velikie Luki, Pskov, Luga or Opochka, to only name a few. The fourth chapter recounts the effect of the occupier’s economic policies – poverty and hunger caused the death of thousands of peasants. Some tried to escape these circumstances by working for the German army but eventually did not see the source of their suffering in the German occupation policies but in the war. After focussing on the negative aspects of Nazi invasion of Northwest Russia, Enstad succeeds in leading towards a ‘change for the better’ in the population’s everyday lives in chapters five and six. The author recalls how the occupiers, by abolishing collectivised farms and reviving the Orthodox Church, reinforced not only support for the occupiers but also undermined the Bolshevik system.

The seventh and longest chapter contains the core arguments and findings of this study, as it takes on the complex question of “what characterized popular political attitudes and behavior” (p. 162) in the Nazi occupied territories. Enstad does so in asking for reasons why ordinary people supported the German regime and comes to conclusion that their support was based on material advantages and anti-Soviet resentment. The population was caught between an anti-Soviet and anti-Bolshevik form of Russian patriotism, which displayed a loyalty towards the German army and state of occupation in the early 1940s. In the end, Enstad concludes that most people did not solely support either regime but rather tried to stay pragmatic by aligning to neither political regime and power. The concluding chapter of Enstad’s study deals with the year 1943 and after, when the decisive turn of WWII resulted in the retreat of the German forces. With that the realisation emerged that the Nazi regime was equally flawed as Stalinism. Though relieved about the end of the war and families reuniting, the peasantry feared the reinforcement of the kolkhoz and the abolishment of the Orthodox church as well as further acts of revenge and punishment. Nazi occupation period had brought with it material, economic and religious improvements – and as Enstad concludes – was regarded by many peasants as a “breathing space between pre- and post-war Stalinism” (p. 220).

In summary, Enstad draws on the experience of Russia’s Northwestern peasantry under Nazi occupation, showing how their initial gruesome and destructive policies, benefited large parts of rural northwest Russia. By working with eyewitness accounts, diaries and memoirs, the author showed that they connected a new hope and better life with the German occupation, freeing them from collectivisation and the banishment of religion. Therefore, Enstad’s study serves as a case study of rural Soviet Russia under Nazi occupation – and intends a reconsideration of not only the Nazi occupation period of northwest Russia but also of the relationship between its rural population and the Stalin’s regime during the turmoil of World War II.