7
RECRUITMENT AND SERVICE
IN THE RANKS
FoR a century and more after the death of the tsar-reformer the armed force~
constituted the principal bulwark of the absolutist regime. It is open to argu-
ment how far Imperial Russia remained a 'garrison' or 'service' state, for tht
relationship between the central power and society at large changed con·
siderably during this long period. Nineteenth-century liberal historians spok(
of a process of raskreposhcheniye (literally, 'de-bonding'), and the term is no
inapt. A perceptive Western critic has recently written that after Peter tht
traditional social order, based on service to the state, was' partially dismantled'.
Two points need to be stressed in this regard. First, the emancipation proces.•
was slow and gradual, interrupted by frequent setbacks and vacillations. It wa~
most sustained during the reign of Catherine the Great (1762-96), bu
thereafter, under the next three male Romanov rulers, there was something o-
a reaction. Second, the benefits which this emancipation conferred wen
distributed unequally. The principal gainers were the privileged elements o
society, particularly those nobles (dvoryane) who owned much land and man~
serfs. We shall examine in ch. 10 and 11 what happened to those members o
this class who served in the army, primarily as officers, and some of the effect:
which the 'dismantling' process had on the state itself. In this section we shal
be concerned mainly with those who gained least from this transformation: th1
nizhniye chiny or 'lower ranks', that is, the soldiers and NCOs. These mer
were the principal victims of the 'garrison state' in so far as this still existed.
This statement needs qualification. How can one measure the deprivation t<
which soldiers in the Imperial Russian army were subject? Two criteria com
to mind: the situation of underprivileged civilians, above all various categorie
of the peasant population, and that of soldiers in other European armies durini
this period. Unfortunately the sources available do not yet permit a thorougl
exploration of the parallels, but it can at least be said that the disadvantages o
the Russian soldier's condition outweighed the advantages. True, he wa
spared the threat of starvation which hung constantly over most of his com
patriots, since he received pay, food, and various other benefits. He als1
enjoyed a status which-at least in the eyes of authority-was considerabl
superior to that of the humble muzhik. Each week an infantryman was for
mally reminded by his commander that he was 'not a peasant but a soldier
I Pipes, Russia under the Old Regime, p. 112.