8
THE STRUGGLE FOR SURVIVAL
As in other European armies of the day, in return for his services the Russian
soldier received pay, food, a uniform, accommodation, and medical care.
These benefits were officially seen as privileges rather than as a legal entitle-
ment. Pay was low by international standards. Count Algarotli, who witnessed
Miinnich's campaign against the Turks in 1739, noted that in Russia soldiers
earned in cash only one-third as much as they did in France or the German
states.^1 In common with other contemporary foreign observers, he did not
consider this fact in its sociological context, as we might do today, but from
the vantage-point of the state economy. Von Hupe! remarked approvingly that
Catherine's army was cheaper to maintain than those of other rulers, and gave
two reasons for this: recruits were obtained by a levy on the native population,
and so did not have to be bought as mercenaries did; and the Russian soldier
was most economical, 'and that is why his pay is uncommonly small'.^2 To a
modern eye von Hupe! put the cart before the horse: precisely because the
soldier's pay was low he had to limit his consumption to the barest necessities.
On the other hand he was less likely than a peasant to suffer hunger through
crop failure or indebtedness.
When one attempts to probe into the realities of the troops' material condi-
tion several points have to be borne in mind. First, the men's regular pay might
be supplemented from other sources, both licit and illicit. Second, pay might
be issued after a delay, or not issued at all; this might be due either to
bureaucratic incompetence or to corrupt practices, in the commissariat or
among officers of the unit concerned. Third, pay was docked at a prescribed
rate for medical facilities, but might also be increased by cash bonuses and
other rewards granted to men who distinguished themselves in action or other-
wise earned the sovereign's favour. Fourth, some account has to be taken of
changes in the value of money if one is to ascertain the real worth of a soldier's
pay.
Private employment of troops by their superiors had been permitted on cer-
tain conditions by Peter's military statute (see ch. 5). Officers were quick to
take advantage of the loopholes in the law, which was difficult to enforce.
Although the army's establishment tables authorized the provision of batmen
or-Orderlies (denshchik1) on a generous scale, the wealthier officers wanted to
have more servants, partly because their number was an index of social status,
just as in civilian life a landowner's prestige depended on the number of 'souls'
I Algarotti, Lei/res, p. 85. 2 Von Hupel, Beschreibung, p. 51.