In Russia, individual life has always been cheap. Forty-one percent (14 million) of the Red Army troops who served from 1942-1945 ended up dead or missing, far outstripping other countries' losses. And yet, citizens of the Soviet Union were beating down Red Army doors to be allowed to serve. Why was everyone so eager to serve a government that didn't care about them? Because the people did care-about their lost loved ones, about the tales of Nazi brutality, about the existential threat to their culture. They embraced their caring, embraced the fight.

Fighting against the Nazis gave the people a feeling of meaning and purpose that had disappeared amid the darkness and confusion of the early years of Communism.

Roza's War: Diary of a Soviet Sniper shows us one such person — Roza Shanina, a Soviet sniper who was born in Ukraine and raised in Northern Russia, who begged to enlist. Now "feet on the ground" in the war effort, Roza earns glory and fame for her skill as a sniper, while she fights against the Nazis, against the vicious abuses of power within the Red Army, and against her own inner demons that push her toward destruction.