Chapter 8 accounts for the end and aftermath of German rule. The chapter finds that popular attitudes to the reestablishment of Soviet power were mixed and far from unequivocally positive. People were relieved to see the war end and happy to reunite with their relatives and friends, but many also feared the wrath of the Soviet state, with good reason. Peasants resented being forced back into the collective farm system. Many even compared their experience of post-war destitution unfavourably to life under German occupation.