Drafting the Russian Nation: Military Conscription, Total War, and Mass Politics, 1905-1925

by Joshua A. Sanborn

Release Date: January, 2003

Edition: Hardcover

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a very interesting thesis

The main thesis of Sanborn's book is that violence as seen through the examples of the Tsarist and Soviet armies cemented the Russian nation together. The first part of the book, Sanborn writes about how the Soviet army managed to tighten draft evasions by rewarding those families that had members serving in the military while confiscating the land of draft evaders and their families during the Russian Civil War.Sandborn also deals with the different nationalities in the Russian empire. Belorussians and Ukrainians assimilated into the Russian army but were later segregrated into seperate ethnic units during the Russain Civil War. While Central Asians resisited service in the Russian army and the Jews were regarded by both Tsarist and Communist officers as subversives and dangerous to morale. The middle section Sanborn descibes how gender roles were coonected to the new Russin nationalism. Both Tsarist and Soviet propaganda stated that Russian men must develop their bodies to protect their nation and the family, while Russian women were required to have sons that could drafted into the army. The final section Sanborn writes how the Russian state would redeem criminals and draft evaders if they rejoined the army, but both the Soviet and Tsarist system would harshly punish pacificit sects. Although the state rewarded violent behavior it could not control it as seen through the various atrocities during the Russian Civil War.The main weakness of Sanborn's book is that he does not write about the treatement about the injured soldiers during and after the Russian Civil War and how this influeced their perception of the Soviet state. Overall this an excellent social history of the Russian army and how it contributed the creation of the Soviet Union.