Оккупированные страны под фашистским ярмом. / Статьи и корреспонденции.
Москва : Издательство «Московский рабочий», 1941.
64 с. ; 17 см. Мягкая издательская обложка. Тираж 75 000 экз.
***
Occupied Countries Under the Fascist Yoke. / Articles and Correspondences.
Moscow : Moskovsky Rabochiy (Moscow Worker) Publishing House, 1941.
64 pp. ; 17 cm. Original paper softcover. Edition of 75,000 copies.
This 1941 propaganda volume is a significant historical artifact, published during the first months of the Great Patriotic War to mobilize the Soviet populace through a grim depiction of life under Nazi rule in Europe. The text provides a deep dive into the internal logic of the early wartime informational front, including the arrangement of reports and correspondences from Poland, Czechoslovakia, France, Norway, and the Balkans. These accounts detail the economic exploitation, the destruction of national cultures, and the brutal repression of resistance movements, serving as a visceral warning of the fate awaiting the Soviet Union should the "New Order" prevail. Published by Moskovsky Rabochiy, the book functioned as part of a rapid-response literary effort to unify the home front and the army against the advancing Wehrmacht.
Spanning 64 pages in a compact, portable 17 cm format, the brochure was designed for mass distribution and reading at the front or in factory breakrooms. The narratives emphasize the "yoke" of fascism—a central metaphor in Soviet wartime rhetoric—contrasting the suffering of occupied nations with the heroic resistance of the Soviet people. Despite its large initial print run of 75,000 copies, the ephemeral nature of these thin, softcover wartime publications, often printed on poor-quality paper and subjected to the rigors of the era, makes well-preserved examples quite rare. For bibliophiles, historians of the Second World War, and collectors of agitational literature, this 1941 Moscow imprint is a vital primary source, documenting the early construction of the anti-fascist narrative in the USSR.