How about Stalin's decision to lower the minimum age for conscription from 21 to 18 in '39? Isn't that mobilisation? Why would the State give the new recruits anything for granted, if they were not required to do something in return? USSR is not famous for giving free meals for nothing. (hint: Ukrainian famine)ljadw wrote:This is not mobilisation .BDV wrote:SU was switching industrial production to armaments, building new armament production capacity, and increasing its armed forces.ljadw wrote:The SU was not mobilizing for war .
Also, you're practically using euphemisms. USSR is not "mobilizing", it is "calling up 3% of their population". They were probably going to have a large barbecue party that summer with so litlle of them. / end sarcasm.
You practically use as a logical scapegoat the very large Soviet manpower pool in order to justify that such a percent does not properly represent full-fledged mobilisation. Anyone can realize that - compared to their perceived European opposition, such a program was deemed big enough.