Inter-Ethnic Conflicts in the Army and Service Record Assessment in a Survey of Demobilized Soldiers and Officers

Abstract

Sergey Mokhov — Student, National Research University “Higher School of Economics”. Address: 20, Myasnitskaya St., Moscow, 101000, Russian Federation. E-mail: svmohov.hse@gmail.com

Sergey Prostakov — Student, National Research University “Higher School of Economics”. Address: 20, Myasnitskaya St., Moscow, 101000, Russian Federation. E-mail: sprostakov@gmail.com

The army has always been a ‘melting pot’ for people in a multiethnic state. However, it does not meet this function in contemporary Russia. There has been a lot of talk about the problem of bullying and conflicts along ethnic lines. However, these conversations are based mostly on rumors and personal experience. The army remains, perhaps, the most poorly studied social institution in contemporary Russia. Its consolidating function has not been studied at all. This study is a preliminary one and its primary purpose is to generate hypotheses for further research. It relies on the data from a survey conducted in the Kursk region in the summer of 2011. The authors interviewed forty-two men who have served active duty in the Russian army.

Contemporary military service in Russia does not make use of the prestige of its recruits and conscripts. The latter regard their service as a forced obligation. Various expatriate and ethnic communities become the basis for solidarity among soldiers, rather than being merely patriotism and loyalty to the general homeland. The soldiers are also generally seeking to consolidate in a desire to serve without causing much trouble. However, expatriate communities play a rather contradictory role, Caucasians constituting the most special case with higher degrees of consolidation and aggressiveness towards the others. This makes it more difficult to solve the problems in the contemporary Russian army. Ethnic conflict in the army is only a particular case of the more general problem of ethnic conflict in Russia as a whole.

The preliminary findings of the study suggest that the modern army simply cannot meet its function of consolidating the people and become a ‘melting pot’. However, it can still be viewed as a prestigious job, uniting people through a common cause, which is yet a quite serious challenge for the current Russian army.