Soviet plunder

Plunder and looting has been a traditional consequence of military activities through human history. Russian forces have plundered before the establishment of the USSR, for example during World War I, and in the conflicts following it, such as the Soviet invasion of Poland in the aftermath of World War I. == World War II ==

Bureau of Experts In 1943 Soviet artist and scholar Igor Grabar proposed tit-for-tat compensation of Soviet art treasures destroyed in World War II with art to be taken from Germany. The idea was approved by the Soviet authorities, leading to the establishment of the Bureau of Experts, tasked with compiling lists of items which the USSR wanted to receive as "restitution in kind" to compensate for its own cultural losses, both from state institutions but also from various private collections. The Bureau was headed by Grabar himself; its other members included Viktor Lazarev and Sergei Troinitsky. While this topic would be subject to discussion among Allies of World War II, eventually it was not subject to any common ruling. Estimating the losses proved difficult, since many Soviet cultural institutions had no reliable catalogues, and the poorly developed art market in Russia made establishing market value of many Russian works of art virtually impossible. Additionally, once the Soviet forces entered non-Soviet territories, they quickly engaged in large-scale and poorly documented looting, while refusing to provide the lists of items removed from the Soviet occupation zone in Germany. In some cases, looting and victory celebrations by the Red Army soldiers led to additional damage, for examples from fires (over 80% of the Polish town of Lubawa was damaged by a fire attributed to the drunk Red Army soldiers celebrating their capture of the town). Bogdan Musiał estimates that through large scale vandalism and arson, that "In pre-war East German territories, Red Army soldiers destroyed more cultural assets and works of art than they managed to confiscate and take to the USSR." The devastation and robberies became increasingly severe in territories Soviets considered to be German. This led to institutionalized looting carried out by specialized groups operating on the orders of the Soviet government, the so-called Soviet "trophy brigades", composed of experts including art historians, museum officials, artists and restorers, tasked with finding objects of cultural value to be seized and sent to the USSR. Items seized were stored in places called "trophy warehouses". In a number of cases, the Soviets also looted areas which were part of the Second Polish Republic in the interwar period (for example, the towns of Września, Włocławek and Grudziądz). In other cases, the Soviet authorities, after initial looting of an industrial object, relinquished it to the Polish communist authorities for repair, then seized it again for another round of looting, before returning it again. As the war ended, the Soviet Union also instituted rules legitimizing "trophy" purchases, some covered by the state, and based on soldier's rank. Anecdotal evidence from the period suggested that some highly placed officials, such as General Georgy Zhukov, acquired so much loot that they chartered entire planes to carry it. In better documented examples, from June 1945, Red Army generals in Germany and similar territories could receive, at no cost, a car, while lesser officers were offered motorcycle or bicycles. Other items distributed by the Soviet authorities to its personnel, at no cost or for a small fee, included items such as furniture (including pianos and clocks), wristwatches, carpets, cameras and similar items. Even more items were traded on the black market. This resulted in a significant influx to the Soviet Union of luxury items initially acquired and used by the family members of the military personnel serving in non-Soviet, occupied territory. == After the war ==

in Anshan, China, looted by USSR Army in 1946 Konstantin Akinsha wrote that "by the second part of 1945 the necessity to compensate for Soviet cultural losses by equally important artifacts from specifically named German collections was forgotten and replaced by the concept of total removal of cultural property from the Soviet-occupied territories". The vast amount of industrial loot (machinery, resources, and associated technologies) have been described as a significant factor for the fast rebuilding of the USSR after the war, leading to its emerging as a global power in the second half of the 20th century. The Museum of Military History in Vienna, which housed many of Austria's rarest military artifacts, had forty percent of their collection stolen or destroyed by the Soviets. Almost the entire collections of small arms, rifles, modern uniforms, and models were lost. Concealment and museum storage Initially Stalin had plans for a "super museum" celebrating the Soviet victory, similar to Hitler's planned Führermuseum. Most cultural items seized by the Soviet state were concentrated in few institutions in major centers, such as Moscow and Leningrad (in particular, the Pushkin Museum in Moscow and the Hermitage Museum in Leningrad), with little compensation reaching cultural institutions in provincial areas. Exhibitions of trophy art were prepared, but never opened to general public, accessible only to high-ranking Soviet officials. Shortly afterwards, Stalin ordered such collections to be considered top secret, which has been understood as an attempt to hide the scope of Soviet looting from the international public opinion. Soviet authorities have been described as very tolerant towards the theft of enemy property, although there were cases of more or less official taxation, extending into bribery, as well as resulting in arrests, including for soldiers who were considered too ambitious and greedy. Theft from trains and warehouses carrying loot, including reparations, became a serious problem for several years. Some crimes were committed by armed gangs; others involved corrupted officials illegally seizing and reselling goods. In some cases, corrupted officials would steal from veterans and their families, including the seizing of decorations and documents, that gave them access to privileges. To address the issues, particularly the theft of state property, a number of new laws were passed, particularly in 1947.). Post-1991 revelations The scope of Soviet looting came to light in the early 1990s, with revelations about the Soviet trophy brigades and stockpiles of looted art from World War II still lingering in hidden warehouses. The initial revelations came from Russian art historians Konstantin Akinsha and Grigory Kozlov, who published their findings in the American ARTnews magazine. They were covered by major media outlets worldwide, leading to public discussion such as the symposium on The Spoils of War. One of the notable early works on this was the 1994 book Loot: The Secrets of German Reparations (Добыча: тайны германских репараций) by Russian military historian Pavel Knyshevsky (Павел Николаевич Кнышевский). The combined value of Soviet loot has been estimated at many billions of dollars. == In conflicts after World War II ==

Soviet forces have been reporting as looting in the Cold War-era conflicts that followed World War II, such as in the Soviet–Afghan War. Likewise, Russian forces have engaged in similar behavior in conflicts following the fall of the USSR (for example, during the Russian invasion of Ukraine). == Controversies ==

(replica pictured) from Germany disappeared in 1945 from Berlin and was located in 2004 in a secret depot within Moscow's Pushkin Museum. The Soviet actions violated the Hague Convention of 1907, which forbids the seizure of cultural property during wartime. The relatively rare more recent returns concerned less valuable items such as archives, and have been accompanied with requests for payment of "storage fees" and "equivalent return" of Russian artifacts held by the receiving countries. The return of items to countries, even those outside the Axis Powers, remains deeply unpopular with the Russian populace. In 2005, a Russian official in a cultural heritage agency said "Everything that the Soviet Union took as compensation... is not subject to return". This has been explained by the "manipulation of historical memory" by the Soviet and Russian governments, which steadily reinforces the image of the "trophies" as just compensation for the cultural losses suffered by Russia (even though the majority of such losses occurred in territories of modern Ukraine). Return of the artworks is an anathema to Russian nationalists, who believe that any such action signifies weakness on the part of Russia, while on the contrary, keeping them proves that Russia is a great power that does not bow down to the West. == In popular culture ==

Widespread Soviet looting led to a Central and Eastern Europe stereotype of the Soviet soldier as a looter "with many wristwatches". The plundering was also a subject of literary works. A Russian writer and former Red Army officer during World War II, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, wrote a long poem describing the Red Army's march across East Prussia, Prussian Nights, a passage of which describes the looting: == Historiography ==

In historiography, the topic of Soviet looting has been considered understudied. Some key documents, including decrees issued by Joseph Stalin in 1945 for the Soviet removal of cultural property from territories occupied by the Soviet Army, have still been classified and not disclosed to historians as of the mid-2010s. Others are assumed to have already been destroyed, to prevent embarrassment or hinder investigations into Soviet crimes. ==See also==