The Soviet Soldier

on the World today

ATLANTIC

September 1952

BETWEEN September 15 and October 15 some 750,000 able-bodied male citizens of the Soviet Union, whose nineteenth birthday falls in the current year or who have completed their secondary education, will be conscripted into the armed forces. There most of them will serve as privates in the ground forces for the next two years; those that become noncommissioned officers in the ground forces will serve for three years; if assigned to the air force they may expect four years of service; if to the navy, five. Upon discharge they will be placed in the reserve and will be called up periodically for one to three months of training until they are fifty.

These Soviet youths undertake their new duties with equanimity and even, in some cases, eagerness. They have been prepared for military discipline by their nineteen years’ experience of a mobilized social order. They are accustomed to restrictions upon travel, fines for lateness to work and absenteeism, two to four months’ imprisonment for quitting one’s job without adequate reason. Many of them were drafted at the age of fourteen for the State Labor Reserves, sent to training schools for three years, and then assigned to factories. In respect to food and even to housing, many will find the army a distinct improvement over civilian life.

Above all, these nineteen-year-olds have been brought up in a revolution which has deliberately applied to peacetime pursuits a war philosophy — that is, a philosophy of discipline, self-sacrifice, unity, collective action, central planning.

In addition, and more particularly, the new conscript has previously undergone several hundred hours of military training in school, starting in the fifth grade. If at the age of fourteen or thereafter he joined the 16 million members of the voluntary civil defense organization (now called Dosaav), he has also received extensive premilitary training in such skills as first aid, rifle marksmanship, the use of submachine guns and mortars, and parachute jumping, and has perhaps belonged to a radio club, ski club, club for training dogs for the service, or some other Dosaav unit.

Discipline for its own sake

The Soviet soldier undergoes strenuous training ten hours a day, six days a week. Furloughs are usually granted only in case of emergency. In addition to his physical and technical labors, he is subjected to a most rigid discipline, reinforced by many hours — reportedly sixteen a week — of political indoctrination and education.

It was the original Bolshevik theory that the discipline of the Red Army should be based principally on a spirit of revolutionary zeal and camaraderie. From 1918 to 1939 the Soviet soldier, upon entering the army, took an oath “before the toiling classes of Russia and the whole world” pledging himself “to direct my every action and thought toward the liberation of all workers.” All decorations, insignia, and ranks were eliminated; saluting was abolished, and all personnel addressed one another as “comrade.”

From the mid-1930s on, there has been a continuing revival of prerevolutionary Russian military traditions and a shift of emphasis away from classconsciousness toward Soviet patriotism and discipline for its own sake. In 1935 the traditional ranks of lieutenant, captain, colonel, and the like, were restored. In 1940 the rank of general was reintroduced. Also in 1940 the duty to salute was imposed. (Soviet noncommissioned officers must also be saluted by their inferiors, and a failure to salute may bring several days of k.P)

In 1943 the title “officer” was restored, together with the traditional Russian officers’ insignia of rank, the gold braid epaulets. In 1946 the names Red Army and Red Fleet were replaced by Soviet Army and Soviet Fleet.

The whip and the carrot

The disciplinary powers of both noncommissioned and commissioned officers are very wide, Confinement in the guardhouse up to twenty days, and reduction in military rank, may in proper cases be imposed on enlisted men and officers, by their superiors, without benefit of court-martial. Oral reprimand before assembled troops is apparently a common form of company punishment, and extends even to generals and admirals, who may be reprimanded before an assembly of officers.

On the other hand, the Soviet system of military discipline also stresses rewards for exemplary conduct; these include valuable gifts, money, and, characteristically, a personal photograph in front of the unfurled unit banner.

More serious offenses against military order and discipline are subject to criminal trial by military tribunals and, in general, to heavier punishment. Departure without leave with intent to be absent up to two hours, if it is the second offense, or from two to twenty-four hours, first offense, is punishable in time of peace by sentence to a disciplinary battalion for six months to two years; departure without leave with intent to be absent for more than twenty-four hours is considered to be desertion and is punishable in time of peace by deprivation of freedom (that is, sentence to a labor camp) for five to ten years. If a serviceman deserts and flees across the frontier, adult members of his family may be exiled to remote regions of Siberia for five years — though they had no part svhatsoever in his crime.

On the whole, however, the Soviet system of military courts and procedure seems to afford the serviceman a fair trial, at least in time of peace. The courts are permanent courts, independent of the commanders, with professional judges and prosecutors. Appeals may go up to the Supreme Court of the U.S.S.R., and many’ Supreme Court cases involving crimes by servicemen are reported. However, it should be noted that the elaborate and time-consuming process of trial in the military courts is complemented by the wide powers of informal nonjudicial punishment for disciplinary offenses; a commanding officer may himself mete out severe punishment to a subordinate and thus avoid the risk of his acquittal by a military tribunal.

Inequalities of rank and privilege

Soviet military discipline is explicitly based on inequalities of rank and privilege. “Equalilymongering,”denounced by Stalin as a “left deviation,”is considered to be dangerous to the maintenance of order; also it is considered a threat to ambition and initiative. In the army this philosophy is carried to such an extreme that sergeants receive almost 5 times as much pay as privates, captains almost 25 times as much, colonels about 45 times as much, and generals from about 70 to about 115 times as much, depending on their rank.

As important as pay differentials are the extra privileges that go with higher rank. The officer is far better dressed; if he is of field grade (major or higher) he has a personal servant: he also has special commissary privileges.

One interesting symbol of the emphasis on distinctions of rank was the restoration in 1946 of the prerevolutionary institution of Officers’ Courts of Honor. In these courts officers are tried by their fellows for “offenses unworthy of the rank of officer which infringe military honor or are not compatible with moral rules.”If the court finds the officer guilty, it may issue a warning or a reprimand or may recommend demotion or transfer. All that now seems to be missing is the prerevolutionary institution of the duel.

Generally speaking, careers are open to talent in the Soviet armed forces. Training courses are available to qualified privates who wish to become noncommissioned officers; officer candidate schools are also open to those who qualify. One step in the opposite direction has been taken, however; Suvorov Schools, named after the famous eighteenth-century Russian general, were established in 1943 to prepare children from the age of nine for officer candidate schools; in admissions to these schools priority is given to the sons of officers.

The Soviet officer does not get his extra pay and his privileges for nothing. Like all Soviet officials, he is under strict surveillance and is punishable for “abuse of authority” and for “a negligent attitude toward service duties.”The commander of a supply depot who distributes supplies without observing the required formalities, or the commander of a military institution who expends for current requirements funds assigned for money reserves, counting on receiving in time assignments to cover the expenditures, is liable to imprisonment for not less than six months.

Party influence in the army

Officers are under surveillance particularly by the Communist Party organs within the army and by the secret informers of the Ministry of State Security. Since the 1942 statute abolishing military commissars and introducing “strict one-man control" in the armed forces, the work of the Communist Party organs has been directed chiefly to propaganda among the soldiers, discipline, and in general what we would call morale.

The Chief Political Administrations of the various military units, representing the Party, not only conduct formal political education (through lectures, seminars, group and individual discussions, and other media) but also provide libraries, cinema and theater facilities, concerts, and newspapers.

Theoretically, at least, the commanding officer of a unit is solely responsible for the military activities of the unit. However, the line between the political and the military is not easy to maintain. As a recent Soviet writer, Major General D. Ortenberg, has stated: “There is not a single part of the unit’s life upon which the political organs do not exert their influence. Military training and political education are inseparably connected in our army.”

However much the Party may be a thorn in the side of the commanding officers, and however much its heavy indoctrination may prevent any expression of political dissent whether by officers or men, nevertheless the Party does also serve to channel the grievances of the men to higher authorities. This is also true of the secret informers of the Special Sections of the Ministry of State Security.

The job of the Special Sections is to report on anti-Soviet activities in the army, but in fact they also check on administrative and other matters. A Soviet D.P. who has a wide firsthand knowledge of Soviet military life recounts the following episode. The commander of a tank regiment of the Byelorussian Military District was summoned to the Special Section of the corps. “The devil knows what ‘s going on in your kitchen,” the head of the Special Section said. The regiment commander replied that as far as he knew there were no special irregularities. “How come, then,” he was asked, “that you find it all right if the soup bucket is stopped up with a rag? And why didn’t you report that the quartermaster company of your regiment attempted collectively to refuse to participate in the daily routine?”

The regiment commander returned to his unit, and upon inquiry discovered that the previous night a tiny hole had been found in the soup bucket and had been temporarily stopped up with a rag, and further that at the time of assembly for the daily routine two or three soldiers had remarked, in view of a heavy downpour of rain, “How nice it would be if there were no routine today.” An overzealous informer had blown these it cans up into a secret report of inefficiency and rebelliousness.

Another story, this one taken from an official report of a wartime case in the Supreme Court of the U.S.S.R., also casts ironic light on the way in which political and military matters may overlap in the life of the Soviet soldier. The case involved an army sergeant who was court-martialed for having “systematically uttered antiSoviet opinions.” It seems that the sergeant, whose military and political record was otherwise unassailable, had, in performing his military duties, expressed certain unfavorable opinions regarding the Constitution.

In sustaining an acquittal the Supreme Court stated: “Although these opinions were often clothed in rough unworthy form and contain politically incorrect formulations . . . it is clear that all these opinions were directed toward the strengthening of military discipline.” It appeared from the evidence, the court said, that the accused “was a demanding person in connection with discipline.

Apparently someone provoked the sergeant by relying on his constitutional rights. Very likely the deputy regiment commander for political affairs pressed charges. Whether in peacetime the sergeant would have fared so well in the courts is open to question.