Though the problem was never as widespread as the Germans believed, autumn 1941 was also when scapegoating of Leningrad’s sizeable Jewish minority (just over 6 per cent of its population pre-war) reached its height. On 1 September Irina Zelenskaya, a manager at the Lenenergo power station, was shocked by ‘a flash of anti-Semitism’ from a ‘rude, vulgar girl’ in the plant’s canteen. Everywhere, she worried, there were ‘mutterings in corners, sideways looks at Party members, distrust and animosity — it could all end in a terrible explosion’.8 In the Russian Museum, according to (clearly anti-Semitic) Anna Ostroumova-Lebedeva, ‘the staff were filled with indignation at the behaviour of the Jews. . When there was an appeal for volunteers at a meeting, they spoke very fervently and patriotically, but in practice all without exception managed to find warm, safe berths for themselves.’9 Instead of attacking the Germans, it was joked of the numerous Leningrad intelligentsia who evacuated to Central Asia, the Jews were storming Tashkent.
Support for the authorities rose in December, with victory at Moscow, but fell again in January 1942, when Soviet offensives failed to lift the siege and a promised ration increase failed to materialise. The announcement of the increase, on 25 December, had been greeted with wild rejoicing: ‘They’ve increased our bread. Mama and I cried for joy. . we’re so happy I can’t write!’ a woman wrote to her husband at the front.10 Vera Inber first heard of it from her maid, who had seen a man reeling out of a bread shop, laughing, crying and clutching his head.11 The announcement, though, was a propaganda ploy; in reality, even less food was distributed than before. At 6 a.m. on 29 December Ivan Zhilinsky went to wait outside his loathed Shop no. 44 on Moskovskaya Street for a rumoured delivery of American canned meat. When the shop opened at first light three and a half hours later he discovered that it only had enough for two hundred people. Being number 233 in the queue he decided that the wait was no longer worth it, and returned home empty-handed. That day he and his wife’s sole meal consisted of fifty grams of bread and a portion of ‘soup’ made from hot water, crumbs and cotton-seed oil. Two days into the New Year queues were forming at one in the morning, and growing disorderly. ‘Queue numbers’, he wrote
are written down and handed out. When people have got theirs they hurry off to warm themselves up. But others, arriving later, sometimes weasel their way in, writing out new numbers. . 6 a.m. arrives but still the shop is closed. It’s still shut at seven, at eight. Then at nine, if she feels like it, the manager finally opens up, and everyone pushes inside, packing it full to bursting. All the glass in front of the cash desk has been smashed, the counters are pushed aside and so on.
The manager, a woman, used to sell vegetables out of a basket in the market. . Her only worth, so far as I can see, lies in her Party card. Instead of trying to improve supplies, she spends her time serving friends through the back entrance. The whole 25th Section of the police get their rations at the back without queuing. There they fry up the newly-delivered meat, and wash it down with wine. . The shop is on a sidestreet, and no inspector ever looks at it. But what could an inspector do? He’s hungry himself, and would sell his own father for a piece of meat.12
On this day, too, Zhilinsky failed to collect any food at all, despite standing in line from five in the morning until seven in the evening.
The effect on public opinion of such experiences was predictable. ‘If in the first days after the raising of bread norms the mood of the city’s population improved’, a Party report of 9 January noted, ‘more recently a large section of the population have displayed despondency and depression. This is due to the fact that no provisions have yet been given out on the January cards, and many people haven’t yet received meat, sugar or grains for the last third or two-thirds of December.’ Cited as typical was the following exchange between two women waiting outside a shop on International Prospect:
‘On the radio we’re always hearing that the population of Leningrad bravely and heroically bears all hardships. But what does this bravery cost? Every day more and more people die of hunger! Death — that’s the end of your bravery. Does the government know how many people are dying?’
‘Obviously our government hasn’t got anything to feed us with. Ordinary people die, but nobody from the government does. They’re well fed, they don’t care about us.’
Queuers standing within earshot, the report went on, failed to contradict the women, listening instead in sympathetic silence. Shortly afterwards the shop manager appeared and announced that he had no food, whereupon the crowd began shouting angrily. He told them to go to the district soviet, where there were ‘people who should do something’.
