Despite its social and political importance, veterans’ policy is an overlooked subject in the field of civil —military relations. This article aims to discuss the theoretical problems of studying veterans’ policy. It also proposes analysis of veterans’ policy in Russia. The aim of the theoretical review is to underline the limits of traditional ways of viewing veterans’ policy, which consider veterans’ policy as a consequence of the development of military institutions. The article stresses the importance of taking into account the effect of societal factors in explaining veterans’ policy. An examination of the Russian case demonstrates the historical development of an exclusive veterans’ policy, including the construction of the privileged position for veterans of the World War II. It also analyses the changes of veterans’ policy after the Soviet Afghan War of 1979 —89. Finally, the article highlights the principles of contemporary veterans’ policy in Russia and explains why it cannot be changed without reconfiguration of civil—military relationships.
See Paul Higate , "Theorizing Continuity: From Military to Civilian Life,"Armed Forces & Society3 (2001): 443-60.
2.
Robert K. Yin, Case Study Research: Design and Methods (London: Sage, 1988), 38. Also see Barney Glaser and Anselm Strauss, The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for Qualitative Research (Chicago: Aldine, 1967).
3.
See Christopher Dandeker, Simon Wessely, Amy Iversen, John Ross, "What’s in a Name? Defining and Caring for ‘Veterans.’ The United Kingdom in International Perspective," Armed Forces & Society 2 (2006): 161-77.
4.
Samuel Stouffer and Leonard Cottrell, "The Soldier Becomes a Veteran," in Studies in Social Psychology in World War II. The American Soldier: Combat and Its Aftermath, vol. 2 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1949), 596-645.
5.
George Mosse, Fallen Soldiers: Reshaping the Memory of the World Wars ( Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1990).
6.
See the official site of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, http://www.gibill.va.gov/GI_Bill_Info/history.htm.
7.
Ben Shephard, A War of Nerves: Soldiers and Psychiatrists 1914-1994 ( London: Pimlico, 2002), 329.
8.
Samuel Huntington, The Soldiers and the State (Cambridge, MA: Belknap, 1957).
9.
Charles Moskos , "From Institution to Occupation: Trends in Military Organization," Armed Forces & Society1 (1977): 41.
10.
Charles Moskos, John Williams, and David Segal, eds., The Postmodern Military: Armed Forces after the Cold War ( Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2001).
11.
Moskos, "From Institution to Occupation," 43.
12.
Charles Moskos , "Institutional and Occupational Trends in Armed Forces: An Update,"Armed Forces & Society12 (1986): 377-82.
13.
Richard Titmuss, "War and Social Policy," in Essays on the Welfare State ( London: Allen and Unwin , 1958).
14.
Gosta Esping-Andersen, The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism (Cambridge , UK: Polity, 1990).
15.
Ibid., 24.
16.
See Mosse, Fallen Soldiers; Deborah Cohen, The War Come Home: Disabled Veterans in Britain and Germany 1914 -1939 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001).
17.
Niall Barr, The Lion and the Poppy: British Veterans, Politics, and Society, 1921-1939 (London: Praeger, 2005).
18.
Deborah Cohen, "Will to Work: Disabled Veterans in Britain and Germany after the First World War," in Disabled Veterans in History, ed. Gerber A. David (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000), 295-321; Cohen, The War Come Home.
19.
Sally Sainsbury, Normal Life: A Study of War and Industrially Injured Pensioners ( Alder-shot, UK: Avebury, 1993).
20.
Theda Skocpol , Protecting Soldiers and Mothers: The Political Origins of Social Policy in the United States (Cambridge, MA: Belknap, 1992); Theda Skocpol, "America’s First Social Security System: The Expansion of Benefits for Civil War Veterans,"Political Science Quarterly1 (Spring 1993): 88.
21.
See the analysis of conscription in Sweden in Annica Kronsell, "Gendered Practices in Institutions of Hegemonic Masculinity," International Feminist Journal of Politics7 ( 2005): 280-98.
22.
See the analysis of veterans’ policy in Netherlands as a result of historical warfare in Jan van der Meulen and Joseph Soeters, "Dutch Courage: The Politics of Acceptable Risks,"Armed Forces & Society4 (2005): 537-58.
23.
Dandeker et al., "What’s in a Name?"
24.
Ibid., 162.
25.
Ibid., 162-63.
26.
For policy consequences and the limits of modern "duty of care" for service personnel in the United Kingdom, see Timothy Edmunds and Anthony Foster, Out of Step: The Case for Change in the British Armed Forces (London : Demos, 2007).
27.
See Pavel P. Scherbinin, Voennyi factor v povsednevnoi zhisni russkoi zhenshiny v XVIII i nachale XX veka (Tambov, Russia: Yulis, 2004); Michail V. Firsov, Istoria socialnoi raboty v Rossii (Moscow: Gumanit. Isdatelstvo Vlados, 1999).
28.
Pavel Scherbinin , "The Peculiarities of Social Welfare for Military Service Veterans in the Russian Empire, XVIIIth through Early XXth Centuries ," Journal of Power Institutions in Post-Soviet Societies6, 7 ( 2007), http://www.pipss.org/document973.html (accessed August 3, 2008).
29.
See, e.g., Zhanna Kormina, Provody v armiiu v poreformennoj Rossii. Opyt etnograficheskogo analiza (Moscow: NLO, 2005).
See Alexander Paderin, "Gosudarstvo na strazhe svoikh sazhitnikov,"Voenno-istoricheskii zhurnal5 (1997): 2-11.
32.
See Ustav o penciakh i edinovremennykh posobiyakh chinam voennogo vedomstva i ikh semestvam (July 10, 1912) and Polozhenie o prizrenii nizhnykh voinskikh chinov i ikh semeistv (July 10, 1912), published in Petr Stolypin, Programma reform P.A. Stolypina. Dokumenty i materialy, http://www.hrono.info/libris/stolypin/stpn2_45.html (accessed November 25, 2008). Also see www.stolypin.ru.
33.
Sheila Fitzpatrick, "The Construction of Social Identity in Soviet Russia," Journal of Modern History 65 (1993): 745-70. About the social structure of Soviet society, also see Mark Edele, "Soviet Society, Social Structure, and Everyday Life," Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History 8, 2 (2007): 349-73.
34.
Fitzpatrick, "Construction of Social Identity," 745.
35.
See "Zakon SSSR ob objasatel’noy voennoi sluzhbe" ( 1930), http://www.soldat.ru/doc/law/law_war/war1930.html .
36.
Elise Kimerling , "Civil Rights and Social Policy in Soviet Russia, 1918-1936," Russian Review 41 (1982 ): 24-46, p. 26.
37.
Fitzpatrick, "Construction of Social Identity"; Kimerling, "Civil Rights."
38.
"Konstitutsiia (Osnovnoi Zakon) Soiuza Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik" (1936), in Istoriia sivetskoi konstitutsii (v dokumentakh) 1917 -1956 (Moscow, 1957). Also see http://www.hist.msu.ru/ER/Etext/cnst1936.htm#10 (accessed December 2, 2008).
39.
"Zakon SSSR o vseobschei voinskoi objasannosti" ( 1939), http://www.soldat.ru/doc/law/law_war/war1939.html .
40.
Ellen Jones, Red Army and Society: A Sociology of the Soviet Military (Boston: Allen and Unwin, 1985), 37.
41.
Steven Solnick , Stealing the State: Control and Collapse in Soviet Institutions (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998), 175.
42.
See Manfred Zapper, "Povsednevnost’ voinstvennosti v Rossii: nasledie militarisovannogo socialisma?" Neprikosnovennyi zapas 1 (1999): 10-21; Aleksei Levinson, "Proshai oruzhie!" Neprikosnovennyi zapas 2 (1999); Alexander Golz, "Glavnoe prepjatstvie voennoi reformy-rossiiskii militarism," Pro et Contra 3 (2004): 56-68; Stephen Webber and Jennifer Mathers, Military and Society in Post-Soviet Russia (Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2006).
43.
Huntington, Soldiers and the State, 80-97.
44.
Timothy Colton, Commissars, Commanders, and Civilian Authority: The Structure of Soviet Military Politics (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979); William Odom, The Collapse of the Soviet Military (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998); Dale Herspring, Russian Civil-Military Relations (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996); and so on.
45.
See Paderin, "Gosudarstvo na strazhe svoikh sazhitnikov"
46.
Ibid., 8.
47.
Gaston Rimlinger , Welfare Policy and Industrialization in Europe, America and Russia (New York: John Wiley, 1971), 301.
48.
Richard Titmuss , Social Policy: An Introduction, ed. B. Abel-Smith and K. Titmuss (London: Allen and Unwin, 1974), 17.
49.
See comments on Soviet welfare in Bob Deacon, ed., The New Eastern Europe: Social Policy Past, Present and Future (London: Sage, 1992); Osip Shkaratan, "Deklariruemaia ili real’naia social’naia politika," Mir Rossii 2 (2001): 3-24; Nick Manning, "Social Policy in the Soviet Union and its Successors," in The New Eastern Europe: Social Policy Past, Present and Future, ed. Bob Deacon (London: Sage, 1992); Nick Manning, "Rossiia v bede," Mir Rossii 1 (2001): 125-52; Tatyana Sidorina, Dva veka socialnoi politiki (Moscow: RGU, 2005); and so on.
50.
Sheila Fitzpatrick, "Postwar Soviet Society: The ‘Return to Normalcy,’ 1945-1953 ," in The Impact of World War II on the Soviet Union, ed. Susan J. Linz (Totowa, NJ : Rowman & Allanheld, 1985 ), 129-56, p. 136.
51.
Ibid, 136.
52.
Ekaterina Chueva, "Mir posle voiny": zhaloby kak instrument regulirovania otnoshenii mezhdu gosudarstvom i invalidami VOV," in Sovetskaia social’naia politika: sceny i deistvuishie litsa, 1940-1985 (Moscow : Variant, 2008).
53.
Fitzpatrick, "Postwar Soviet Society"
54.
Elena Zubkova, Russia after the War: Hopes, Illusions and Disappointments, 1945-1957 ( New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1998), 28.
55.
Roman Kolkowicz , The Soviet Military and the Communist Party (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1967), 72. Also see Frank Ellis, "Army and Party in Conflict: Soldiers and Commissars in the Prose of Vasily Grossman," in World War 2 and the Soviet People, ed. John Garrard and Carol Garrard ( New York: St. Martin’s, 1993 ), 180-201; Lazar Lazarev, "Russian Literature on the War and Historical Truth," in World War 2 and the Soviet People, ed. John Garrard and Carol Garrard ( New York: St. Martin’s, 1993 ), 28-37.
56.
Nina Tumarkin , The Living and the Dead: The Rise and Fall of the Cult of World War II in Russia (New York: Basic Books, 1994).
57.
Mark Edele , "Soviet Veterans as an Entitlement Group, 1945-1955 ," Slavic Review65 ( 2006): 111-37.
58.
Fitzpatrick, "Postwar Soviet Society," 136.
59.
Amir Weiner , "The Making of a Dominant Myth: The Second World War and the Construction of Political Identities within the Soviet Polity ," Russian Review55 ( 1996): 638-60; Amir Weiner, Making Sense of War: The Second World War and the Fate of the Bolshevik Revolution (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001).
60.
Nina Tumarkin, Living and the Dead, 127-30.
61.
Ethel Dunn , "Disabled Russian War Veterans: Surviving the Collapse of the Soviet Union," in Disabled Veterans in History , ed. Gerber A. David ( Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000), 253.
62.
Mark Galeotti , Afghanistan: The Soviet Union’s Last War (London: Frank Cass, 1995).
63.
Rossia i SSSR v voinach XX veka: statisticheskoe issledovanie (Moscow: OLMA-PRESS, 2001), 535-36.
64.
Roger R.Reese, The Soviet Military Experience: A History of the Soviet Army, 1917-1991 (London: Routledge, 2000), 166.
65.
Rossia i SSSR, 535-36.
66.
Nikolai Salmin , Internazionalism v deistvii: Lokal’nye voiny I vooruzhennye konflikty s uchastiem sovetskogo komponenta: voennogo, voenno-technicheskogo, ekonomicheskogo (1950 -1989) (Ekaterinburg , Russia: Isd-vo Gemanitarnogo Universiteta, 2001), 85.
67.
See, as an example, Vesna bor’by and nadezhd, "Krasnaia zvezda," March 21, 1982. A collection of newspaper articles is in V. M. Vinogradov, Afganistan: 10 let glasami SMI, http:// www.rsva.ru/biblio/prose_af/10_let.shtml.
68.
Anatolii Liakhovskii, Plamia Afgana (Moscow: Vagrius, 1999), 271. This book has reference to "classified" regulations about the procedure to bury soldiers killed in Afghanistan.
69.
Reese, Soviet Military Experience, 168.
70.
Alexander Kinsburgskii and Michail Topalov, "Reabilitatsiia ukhastnikov afganskoi voiny v obshchestvennom mnenii," Sotsiologikheskie issledovaniia 1 (1992): 104-7. Also see, e.g., Chakhkiev S. Dvadtsat’ vesen serzhanta. Raskaz o sovetskom komsomol’tse, geroiski pogibshem v boiu s dushmanami, Sovetskaia Rossiia (September 7, 1985); Taranenko I. Trudnoe nebo, Pravda (October 15, 1985); Zemskov M, Shagnuli v bessmertie, Pravda (October 19, 1985).
71.
Kamanov A. Podvig Aleksandra Mironenko, Komsomol’skaia Pravda (September 2, 1986).
72.
Andriianov V., Polozhevets P.Zvezda Kapshuka, Komsomol’skaia Pravda (January 12, 1986). Also see, e.g., Verstakov P. Proidia skvos’ ogon’, Pravda (March 13, 1986).
73.
Rossiia i SSSR v voinakh XX veka: statisticheskoe issledovanie (Moscow: OLMA-PRESS, 2001), 535-36.
74.
A Special Resolution of the Central Committee of the Communist Party and the Council of Ministers on January 17, 1983, states, "On benefits for service personnel, workers and government personnel included to the Limited Contingent of the Soviet forces in the territory of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, and their Families" (N59; includes changes from July 26, 1984).
75.
There is a lack of reliable data on the case of Afghan war veterans’ welfare. My conclusions are drawn from my research "Social Policy and Political Activity of Afghan War Veterans in 1980 -2002." The sample includes thirty interviews with veterans, experts (2000-2003), and various sorts of secondary data. See, e.g., www.artofwar.spb.ru.
76.
Also see Problemy social’noi reabilitatsii uchastnikov voiny v Afganistane (1979-1989) (Moscow: Institut Sotsiologii RAN, 1993).
77.
Reportage on self-immolation of ex-Afghan soldier, Komsomolskaya Pravda (August 22, 1990); B. Litovkin, "Otnimaut doma u afgantsev," Izvestiia (March 21, 1991); and so on.
78.
A. Pankratov , "Odnazhdy vecherom posle voiny," Komsomolskaya Pravda (March 17, 1989).
The Second Meeting of the Deputies of the Soviet Union passed a resolution on the moral and political mistake of the decision to invade Afghanistan.
82.
Anderi Sakharov , Vospominaniia v dvukh tomakh. T. 1 ( Moscow: Prava cheloveka, 1996), 762.
83.
Michail Dmitriev , "Social’nye reformy i budzhetnyi krisis v Rossiiskoi Federacii," in Social’naiaa politika v period perekhoda k rynku: Problemy i resheniia: Sb. Statei, ed. Alexander Oslon and Michail Dmitriev (Moscow: Mosk. Carnegie Centre, 1996), 105-27.
84.
Stephen Kotkin , Armageddon Averted: The Soviet Collapse 1970-2000 (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2001), 119.
85.
Ibid., 119.
86.
Alexander Kotenev , Neokonchennaya voina. Istoria Rossiiskogo Sousa veteranov Afghanistana (Moscow , 1994).
87.
Decree of president of Russian Soviet Federative Republic on November 30, 1991, "On Russian Foundation of Disabled Veterans of Afghan War" (N 248; with changes on March 6, 1995, November 16, 1996); Decree of president of Russian Federation on April 4, 1992, "On Activity of Union of Afghan Veterans" (N 362; additional to resolution on August 9, 1988; N989).
88.
Also see Dunn, "Disabled Russian War Veterans," 255-56.
89.
Brian D.Taylor, Politics and the Russian Army: Civil-Military Relations, 1689-2000 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 338.
90.
Joris J. Van Bladel, "The All-Volunteer Force in the Russian Mirror: Transformation without Change" (PhD thesis, Groningen, Netherlands, 2004), http://dissertations.ub.rug.nl/FILES/faculties/arts/2004/j.j.e.van.bladel/thesis.pdf .
91.
Kotkin, ArmageddonAverted, 126.
92.
See N. Nikulina , "Pokushenie na blagotvoritel’nost’ ," Vek (Moscow, March 30, 1997); Elena Nedomerova, "Kuda tekut "afganskie" milliardy?,"Segodnja (Moscow, May 4, 1995); and so on.
93.
Kotkin, ArmageddonAverted, 127.
94.
Vadim Volkov , Violent Entrepreneurs: The Use of Force in the Making of Russian Capitalism (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2002).
95.
Federal Law of Russian Federation "On Veterans" on January 12, 1995 (N5-FS).
96.
For additional commentaries, see James Sherr , "On the Status of Participants in Combat Operations," and James Greene, "On the Status of Participants in Combat Operations," both in Russian Federation Legal Acts on Civil -Military Relations: Commentaries, ed. Phillip H. Fluri and Stepan Sulakshin ( Geneva: DCAF, 2004), http://www.dcaf.ch/_docs/Russian_law_comments_engl/35A_SHERR.pdf , http://www.dcaf.ch/_docs/Russian_law_comments_engl/35A_GREENE.pdf (accessed December 4, 2006).
97.
Igor’ Obraztsov and Sergei Solov’ev, "Sotsial’nye problemy byvshikh kadrovikh voennosluzhashchikh,"Sotsiologicheskie issledovania4 (1998): 70-79.
98.
Federal Law from August 22, 2004 (N122; in force since January 1, 2005); Federal Law from October 6, 2003 (N131; in force since January 1, 2006).
99.
According to the official source, the number of veterans and disabled veterans of the Great Patriotic War was 969,000 in 2005. See Tatyana Efremenko, "Veteran Has a right," Russian Newspaper N3763, May 6, 2005, http://www.rg.ru/2005/05/06/veteran.html.
