Personnel- Class

Most of the dead Russians killed in Ukraine are servicemen from poor regions, with the highest casualties in Dagestan and Buryatia. This became known from a study by Mediazone. Dagestanis and Buryats go to war with Ukrainians most often, so most of the victims are from these poor regions. There, the average salary is just over 20 thousand rubles a month (about 220 euros). At the same time, Mediazone found out that residents of Moscow and St. Petersburg, where a total of more than 12% of Russia's population lives, are virtually absent from reports from the front.

In the United States, the Vietnam era draft was said to have drawn its numbers largely from the poorer elements of society, and the subsequent All Volunteer Force military recruitment process relied on the economically disadvantaged to maintain end strength. This “economic draft” offers the military as the employer of last resort for many needy youth, thus negating the need for a return to the traditional draft.

Based on experience, by the media, by the comments of officers, in the new century military service has become a social ladder for contract servicemen and officers, a ladder to life. First of all, of course, financial and social well-being. People from socially and economically prosperous segments of the population try not to go to serve. But children from rural areas or small towns in depressed regions graduate from school, and they face a choice of what to do next. It must be understood that they have a sharp lack of information about modern urban life. And military service is understandable.

It existed for centuries, probably their fathers and grandfathers served. Plus, there is an ideological civil patriotic position in the service - to defend the country. At the same time, according to regional standards, good money is paid for this. Service in the Armed Forces gives social support, this is an apartment and some kind of health care. Soldiers can become an officer, move up the ranks: every soldier wants to become a general.

An ordinary urban Russian guy has less pronounced masculine cultural requirements than guys from more conservative regions, where there is a high proportion of the religious and rural population. Service is welcome and an honorable duty for such men. In addition, in poor regions, 30,000 rubles is a serious salary.

Sometimes it is a headache for officers, for example, to force soldiers from the North Caucasus to do cleaning duties, because some of them have never cleaned their houses and think that this is a woman's business. Soldiers from ethnic republics create ethnic networks within the army, sometimes even between different battalions. Soldiers exchange contacts, help each other and live together. At the same time, the army believes that everyone should be equal, it assumes such an ideological melting pot.

Over time opportunities for military service changed radically. Under the Czars, the nobility provided the officer corps, and commoners the troops they commanded. In the early Soviet period, military service was confined to people of proletarian and peasant origins, though over time the liquidation of the exploiting classes rendered class origins less relevant. In post-Soviet Russia, lower classes are the backbone of the service, though the sharp distinction between officers and enlisted remains. Military service remains an attractive career move for remote agricultural workers, but the profession of arms is not highly esteemed by metropolitan professionals.

The core of the Moscow army was the grand ducal court, which consisted of small service people (nobles and boyar children). As the Grand Duchy of Moscow included other Russian principalities, the "courts" of the appanage princes and boyars, who had lost their independence, especially the disgraced ones, were disbanded, and the servants of these courts passed to the Grand Duke. The bulk of this army were boyar children. In the XV century sources make a strict distinction between the boyar children from the cities and the boyar children who were part of the grand ducal court. So there was a difference in the official and, apparently, the financial situation of the two groups of boyar children: yard and city. The second group of service people of the Grand Duke's court were the nobles. Until the middle of the XVI century. nobles in official documents were lower than the children of the boyars. The social core from which the nobility grew was the servants of the princely court, free and not free (serfs).

The peasant farmers were entrusted with the maintenance of the military forces of the state in the form of a local militia of the children of boyars and nobles. The provision of land for service people was accompanied by the attachment of peasants to the land and the intensification of feudal exploitation. The formation of the local militia was a major achievement of the princely power in the organization of the armed forces of the state. The size of the armed forces increased significantly, and the military structure of the state received a clear organization.

Despite the fact that the government took measures to increase the combat effectiveness of the local militia, it was increasingly lagging behind modern requirements. In the end, the government was forced to replace the militia with a more advanced military organization. This happened in the middle of the 17th century. Instead of people's militias, who gathered only in case of military danger without exception or by apportionment by decision of the veche, representatives of the people now began to serve as "people" (serfs) of the landowner. The service of "people", as well as the service of the landowner, was a constant duty. Consequently, in terms of its social composition, the local militia was far from homogeneous, it included not only boyars and nobles, but also peasants (serfs), and the peasants occupied a prominent place in it in terms of numbers. The main and most essential part of the combat forces of the Russian army - artillery - was served exclusively by the common people.

Some information about the total number of Russian troops is given by foreign sources, but this information is rather contradictory. According to foreigners, the Russian army numbered from 150 to 350 thousand people. These figures are undoubtedly exaggerated. Based on information about the number of Russian troops on campaigns, it can be assumed that in case of a serious military danger, the Russian state could at that time muster up to 200 thousand horse and foot soldiers.

When the Russian state had to conduct major military operations, the government involved the urban and rural population in military service. The military service of the taxable population was significant, up to one warrior from 2–3 workers. The plow, that is, a certain taxable unit, lay at the basis of establishing the size of this duty. The militia, gathered from the plow, was called the "straw" army or "staff". The population supplied the warriors with weapons, armor and kept them while they were in the service.

The first half of the 19th century was characterized by an ever-increasing crisis in the feudal-serf system as a result of the development of new capitalist relations in its depths. This process of disintegration of the feudal-serf system led to the growth of class contradictions and the emergence of a new bourgeois ideology. The backwardness of the feudal economy, the decay of the entire system of the autocratic-noble state as a whole, all this determined the state of one of the main instruments of state power - the army.

The recruitment of the army with rank and file was carried out according to the recruiting charter of 1831. Military service was mandatory only for taxable estates. The service life was set at twenty-five years. The draft age is from twenty to thirty-five years. The annual contingent of recruits averaged eighty thousand. Recruits enlisted in the army were freed from serfdom. Consequently, in the conditions of the existence of serfdom, it was impossible to increase the number of conscripts and create trained reserve cadres. All training was characterized by the preparation of troops for reviews and parades, and not for actions in the war.

The military defeat in the Crimean War left no one in doubt about the need for reforms in the military field. The initiative to introduce all-class military service belonged to P.A.Valuev, who in October 1870 submitted to Alexander II a special note about this. All persons from 21 to 41 years old, regardless of class, are in one of the four categories of the Armed Forces: a) in the regular army or navy, b) in irregular troops, c) in reserve troops, d) in the militia. Admission to active service is decided by lot. Deferrals are provided to persons studying at the time of conscription in secondary and higher educational institutions. In peacetime, it was allowed to replace the call with a redemption sum with enrollment in the militia. Persons who have graduated from higher and secondary educational institutions are given the right to enter the army as volunteers, and at the end of the service, having passed the exam, are enlisted as officers in the reserve.

The history of the Soviet Army and Navy began with the formation of the world's first socialist state. After the victory of the October Revolution of 1917, the Soviet people had to not only build a new society, but also defend it with arms in hand against internal counter-revolution and repeated attacks by international imperialism. The theoretical ideas of Lenin were reflected in the decree "On the Creation of the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Army" of January 15, 1918. It provided for voluntary recruitment, registration of volunteers at least 18 years old, weapons were issued only to “the most persistent and devoted workers, peasants and soldiers”.

Such an army remained small, and first of all, the starving poor, who counted on 15 rubles per day and food rations, signed up as volunteers. Some of the volunteer detachments formed in late 1917 and early 1918 turned into semi-bandit formations that robbed and killed in the name of the Soviet government.

During the Civil War of 1918–20, the construction of the Red Army and the Red Army Fleet was carried out under exceptionally difficult conditions. The army did not have the necessary number of command personnel; means. part of the officers of the old army was on the side of the counter-revolution. The peasantry, from which the rank and file and junior command personnel were mainly recruited, devastated by the First World War of 1914–18, were not inclined to voluntarily join the army.

In 1919, on the basis of the decisions of the 8th Party Congress, the transition to a regular mass army was completed, with a strong proletarian, politically conscious, cadre core of personnel, a single recruitment system, a stable organization of troops, centralized control and an effective party political apparatus. The construction of the Armed Forces of the USSR took place in a sharp struggle with the "military opposition" , which opposed the creation of a regular army, defended the remnants of partisanship in command and control of troops and the conduct of war, and underestimated the role of old military specialists. By the end of 1919, the strength of the Red Army reached 3 million people, by the autumn of 1920 - 5.5 million people. The proportion of workers was 15%, peasants - 77%, others - 8%.

After the victorious end of the Civil War and the infliction of a decisive defeat on the combined forces of the interventionists and the White Guards, the Red Army was transferred to a peaceful position and by the end of 1924 its strength was reduced by 10 times. Simultaneously with the demobilization, the strengthening of the Armed Forces was carried out. In 1923, the united People's Commissariat for Military and Naval Affairs was recreated. As a result of the military reform of 1924–25 the central apparatus was reduced and updated, new staffs of units and formations were introduced, and the social composition of command personnel was improved.

On September 18, 1925, the first law appeared in the USSR that regulated compulsory military service for all citizens. And then they declared service in the army "an honorable duty of the citizens of the USSR" and created a system of military registration and enlistment offices. depending on the policy of the state, a class qualification was established for Soviet conscripts, the terms of service in different branches of the military were changed, the draft age was either introduced or canceled benefits and deferrals for university students. It was forbidden to call up “persons of the exploiting classes” into the army: children of former nobles, merchants, officers of the tsarist army, priests, manufacturers, as well as Cossacks and kulaks.

On September 1, 1939, the law "On universal military duty" was adopted, which abolished the previously existing restrictions on conscription into the army and navy for certain categories of the population and proclaimed military service an honorable duty of all citizens of the USSR, regardless of their class affiliation. “All male citizens of the USSR, without distinction of race, nationality, religion, educational qualification, social origin and status, are required to serve in the armed forces of the USSR,” the third article of the new law read.

The social composition of the army improved: from 40 to 50% of the soldiers and junior commanders were representatives of the working class. In 1939 there were 14 military academies, 63 military schools of the Ground Forces and 14 of the Navy, and 32 flight and flight technical schools. On September 22, 1935, personal military ranks were introduced, and on May 7, 1940, general and admiral ranks.

In 1967, the USSR adopted another law "On universal military duty", which, with some amendments, was in effect until the very collapse of the Soviet Union. Now the call was held twice a year - in spring and autumn. The term of service in the ground forces was reduced to two years, in the navy - to three. University graduates served in the army for one year. And if their university had a military department, then they might not get into the army at all.

In 1980, the conscription law was amended. Now only students of universities "included in the list approved by the Council of Ministers of the USSR on the proposal of the State Planning Committee of the USSR and the USSR Ministry of Defense" received a deferment. This list is constantly changing and not published to the general public. By 1988, the deferments were gradually abolished in almost all universities, even in those where there were military departments. Only after the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan in 1989 were benefits returned to students of all universities.