A piece of Russian history

I received today an unusual acquisition, a Mosin Nagant 1891/30 rifle, released at some point from a Russian arms cache and sold to the Americans. It was $99.95 at a local sporting goods store, cheap for a relatively accurate, high caliber weapon.

I won't bore you with the history of this model, but I will tell you that it was built by the Izhevsk Arsenal in 1942. For those of you who do not know, let me tell you where, and when, this rifle came from.

In 1942, the Soviets were fighting a losing battle against the invading German Wehrmacht. The Germans attacked in June 1941, and throughout 1941 and 1942, the Soviets were in a dire fight for existence. The Germans crushed the Soviet defensive lines and captured enormous numbers of prisoners. Only two things seemed to bode well for the Soviets: The endless Russian Steppe, and the brutal Russian winter. In fact, if Russia were the size of France, it would have been over with in 1941. If it were the size of the United States, it would have been decided in 1942, in the German's favor. But Russia goes on forever. Napoleon knew this, and Hitler was about to learn it. Even after the Germans had penetrated their furthest into Russian territory in 1943, within site of the three primary Russian cities, they had only conquered about 1/4th of Soviet territory.

The Russian defense, such as it could be called, comprised two basic commodities: Russian soldiers and space. When they had the former, they fought for the latter. Otherwise, they gave it up and fell back to another position. A seemingly unending supply of both kept the Soviets in the war, year after year. They created and committed infantry forces as quickly as they could. When the Germans threatened a base of production, they dismantled the factories and moved them further into the Russian interior, and built more weapons and formed more divisions. Many were captured. Some survived. The Germans advanced, and always, always, more Russian infantrymen, and further to go.

"With amazement and disappointment, we discovered in late October and early November that the beaten Russians seemed quite unaware that as a military force they had almost ceased to exist."
Günther Blumentritt, Chief of Operations to German General Gerd von Rundstedt, Army Group South

The primary weapon of the Soviet infantryman at this time was the Mosin Nagant 1891/30 rifle, an example of which I now possess. It is a bolt action rifle chambering the 7.62mm x 54mm round, basic in design and function, easy to manufacture, use and clean. And manufacture they did. Price is decided by supply and demand. My price, $99.95, was decided primarily by a huge supply of rifles coming from some 37 million that were manufactured by the Soviets and their clients during World War I, the interwar years, World War II, and after.

The Russians are famous for building dependable, reliable, simple weapons - and burying them. Who knows how many of these guns were locked away by the Soviets, waiting for the Cold War to turn hot. It never did. Now, apparently recognizing that the Americans are not going to invade, they have emptied their warehouses and are selling the obsolete firearms by the gross. The ammo, too. Surplus ammunition for this rifle from the Eastern Bloc and Russia goes for about 18 cents a round, versus about a dollar a round for new US ammo. I have 440 rounds of it on order now, made in the 1980's, maybe under the order of Andropov.

Sitting around for 30 years... waiting for the war with the capitalists. And this is a rifle that was obsolete even then. This round does not fit in the AK-47 or the AK-74.

I disassembled and cleaned the weapon. It seems to be in fine shape. Everywhere are the signs of corners cut and minor blemishes dismissed. The stock is a little rough, the metal work is not up to American standards, either now or then. But the rifle cocks, fires, and I suspect, does so accurately enough to kill a German soldier at 100 yards. In 1942, that was perfect.

I want to whisper to this gun: "You are in the United States now, and not in the hands of a defender of the Motherland. I bought you for ninety nine American dollars, because communism lost, and I have bought you as the cheapest spoils of victory."

I want to say that. I can't.

I can't sully the victory of the men who carried this rifle from Moscow to Berlin.I can't demean the sacrifice made by men who are no worse than I am. Whether their cause is just or not, it doesn't matter. They died. Their lives stopped in 1942 or '43 or '44. They put everything on the line to defend against tyranny, and some of them, in the end, lost everything. And in the end, won everything. They won it all.

I will never insult their name or their sacrifice. They are better men than me.

So I clean and learn this gun, like the young men who put their lives on the line for their homeland, and when I do...

The rifle speaks to me.

What are the chances that it did not see service? Very low. Made in 1942, it would have had to sit around unused while newer weapons were issued. Not likely.

This weapon was on the back of an infantryman in 1942. I know it. Did the soldier who carried it kill any Germans with it? The possibility is distinct. It was in service for three years of war and survived. It almost certainly fired upon the enemy. It was at the Pripyet marshes, in a column of Russian soldiers, perhaps. It was in Poland, or Lithuania or Kiev... it was held by an 18-year old farmer as he ran in the dust behind a T-34 at Kursk in 1943.

It was held by a boy, a Russian boy, who leveled it against the invading Fascists and died, before he could fire. It was at Karkhov, fighting the soldiers of Hoth, Kempf, Manstein! It defended the motherland in the service of Malinovski, Matutin, or even the great Zhukov himself. Perhaps his guard carried this gun.

Yes, the Communists lie, and sometimes those lies are what is needed, sometimes there is beauty in a lie. Sometimes the lie descends through the ages, in a cheap propaganda poster or a story in Pravda. In the end, victory is the first prerogative. The lie becomes merely a simplistic truth.

It was the son of a desperate and patriotic father from Peryaslav, terrified, and yet after seeing his village burn, wanted nothing but to kill the Nazi oppressor. Maybe it wasn't even a man. A woman held this rifle and fired on the advancing Germans in a trench surrounding Moscow, in the rubble of a building in Stalingrad, cold and sparse and meager, scratching for existence, the gray monotone of sacrifice to the Motherland.

Perhaps.