It was only after Russians realized that Nazis show no compassion and will not spare anyone, that they started to fight back. German soldiers were trained to view russians (and other slavs like Poles) as something less than human (english and french, netherlands were considered human tho, as you can see much smaller number of civilians killed). Thats why the russians had many "partizan" - militia that were not under Red Army's command that would setup ambushes in the forests. The nazis of course took all the food and supplies from the cities in villiages they captured. They soviet russians did not really have any heavy steel production to get the necessary equipment to fight back, only later on they did.http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/war/wwtwo/soviet_german_war_03.shtml
One of the reasons the Moscow was important is because of central command in the red square of all the red army+government, as well as de-moralizing russians. Because Soviet Union was not only 1 country but 15+ countries and moscow was the central link.
I do not agree with soviet communism at the time, I don't like it one bit, but truth is russians, ukrainians and other soviets (citizens and military) were heroic in defending their country. Also funny how russian winter is mentioned in articles on battle of kiev 1943 (when soviets re-captured the city), ukraine which is south of russia has about same or even warmer weather than Poland. Its easy to just label everything with the almighty russian winter isn't it..
One of the reasons the Moscow was important is because of central command in the red square of all the red army+government, as well as de-moralizing russians. Because Soviet Union was not only 1 country but 15+ countries and moscow was the central link.
I do not agree with soviet communism at the time, I don't like it one bit, but truth is russians, ukrainians and other soviets (citizens and military) were heroic in defending their country. Also funny how russian winter is mentioned in articles on battle of kiev 1943 (when soviets re-captured the city), ukraine which is south of russia has about same or even warmer weather than Poland. Its easy to just label everything with the almighty russian winter isn't it..