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The primary Soviet concept of civil defense in the Soviet Union appears to have been primarily civilian support to oppose a land invasion. The Soviet Union had a voluntary civil defense organization known as Osoaviakhim. There were women's paramilitary training and war preparations in the 1930s. The activities included shooting sports and motor racing. There were also training of female pilots, parachutists and other areas of civil defense training. This seems part of a increasing militarization of Soviet society in the 1930s. [Ilic] The Soviet Union appears to have given little attention to preparations to protect civilians from ememy aerial bombing attacks. The only major action taken was to build the Moscow sunway as especially deep depths. Nikita Khrushchev managed the Metro project. He inisted that the design should include deep tunnels for use as air raid shelters, depite the consideravle added costs. Stalin concured with the idea. After the Luftwaffe began raiding Moscow, civilians began using the subway stations as public shelters. As far as we know, these were the only significant public shelters in Soviet cities. The major air defense action taken once the War began was to attach anti-aircraft batteries to the defense factories moved from the Western Soviet Union east of the Urals. Soviets cities were after the destruction of the Red Air Fiorce, largely undefended. For more than a year, while the Red Air Force was rebuilt, air defense was largely provided by anti-aircraft batteries with little effective. Many cities in the western Soviet Union were largely unprotected when Luftwaffe raids began. While the Soviet Civil Defense was limited during World war II, durung the Cold war the Soviert Union launched a massive Civil Defense program to prepare for nuclear war.
Ilic, Melanie. Centre for Russian and East European Studies, University of Gloucestershire. "Soviet Women and Civil Defense Training in the 1930s," Minerva Journal of Women and War Vol. II, No. 1 (Spring 2008), pp. 100-113).
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