The ‘Internal enemy’: protest moods in Moscow and Leningrad and the activities of NKVD, 1941-1942

<p>The present study examines the protest moods of Leningrad and Moscow inhabitants and the patterns of political control exercised by the city authorities during the first wartime winter. Numerous post-Soviet studies have been devoted to the interactions between the population and authorities in the whole Soviet territory or in these two cities separately. For the first time ever this study aims to compare the situations in the old and present capitals taking into consideration two sides of political environment: the vision of the inner danger according to the regime prescriptions and the real state of affair. Firstly, the present paper determines which danger, in the government&rsquo;s opinion, the &ldquo;hostile social element&rdquo; constituted and, as a consequence, which remedial measures were undertaken by NKVD agents in Moscow and Leningrad. Secondly, the preconditions and reasons for protest social moods and also the ways of their manifestation in these two cities are observed. And finally, after the explicit examination of the two mentioned above aspects there was the grounds for comparison of protest moods though Leningrad blockade is commonly considered to be a unique event of the Great Patriotic War (and it was true in many ways). However, as shown in the work, in the moods of the population, as well as in the activities of the punitive forces in these front-line cities there were a great deal of similarities.</p><p>On the basis of the sources of personal origin (diaries and memoires of Leningraders and Muscovites) and official NKVD documents it is demonstrated that although Leningrad was besieged for almost 900 days while Moscow was defended in December 1941 both cities had experienced the waves of arrests, forced evacuation of &ldquo;counterrevolutionary elements&rdquo;, considerable growth of negative attitude toward the actions of the authorities in combination with the utter lack of reliable information about what was happening at the front and in the rear.</p><p>The comparative research has demonstrated that both cities had experienced the same NKVD measures. Also the study uncovers the considerable growth of negative statements&nbsp;against the actions of the authorities such as, for example, provision of food supply or military failures.</p>