So I stumbled upon this this interesting piece from RAND corporation about ethnic relations within the Soviet military.
https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/reports/2008/R2787.1.pdf
As this was made back in 1982, they obviously cannot rely on hard data, and thus relied on tons of interviews with former Soviet military servicemen that has moved/fled to the west at that time, instead. They admit it could contain exaggeration although they're quite confident that they've taken enough measures to mitigate it.
Some findings (amongst others) are:
How accurate do y'all think it is? Love to hear you opinion.
https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/reports/2008/R2787.1.pdf
As this was made back in 1982, they obviously cannot rely on hard data, and thus relied on tons of interviews with former Soviet military servicemen that has moved/fled to the west at that time, instead. They admit it could contain exaggeration although they're quite confident that they've taken enough measures to mitigate it.
Some findings (amongst others) are:
- With the exception of the non-combat construction troops, most conscript will be stationed far from their place of origins, except if they can bribe the conscription officers enough.
- "Reliable Slavs" (Russians, Ukrainians, and Belorusians) dominated the structure of the armed forces, and overwhelming Russian dominance could be found inside the officer corps. Minorities who climbed in the officer rank were usually quite russified, although even then, minorities rarely reach the rank above Major.
- Russification of the officer corps picked up steam especially after world war II and after Khruschev's military downsizing in the 1950s (alledgely non-Slavic officers got demobilized more than Slavic ones).
- (Eastern) Ukrainians overwhelmingly dominated the NCO corps because so many of them re-enlisted after their conscription terms ended. Many deemed of them as ruthless and careerist. Western Ukrainians, however, were seen as more nationalistic and thus don't like the military service.
- There are significant language issues within the less educated non-Slav people, especially those that came from Central Asia and the Caucasus, who often times spoke no Russian when they got conscripted.
- Majority of non-Slavs were assigned to the non-combat construction troops, partly because of the government distrust of minorities, but also because of language issues above. Some exceptions are:
- Many Balts found themselves to be assigned to technologically intensive services because the government found them to be highly disciplined and have excellent academical aptitude. While the Balts and Russians enlisted hate each other (because of the Balt's very strong national sentiment), Russians bedgrugingly respected the Balts for this, and...
- MVD troops (internal security) were mainly manned by Central Asians (in one claim, as much as 50-60% of the total internal security troops were from Central Asian ethnicities). There were stereotipically deemed to be ruthless and cruel in this service.
- Racism were widespread inside the armed forces. Racism were especially severe towards Central Asians who were deemed to be backwards. Fightings and violence because of racism were also frequently happened inside the armed forces, sometimes involving dozens of people.
- It was said that these kind of racially motivated fightings happened all the time and in many places, even said one interviewee, "in top secret nuclear facilities near Tomsk". Officers don't like to involved themselves in this issues because it could blemish their career records, thus, many issues remains unadressed.
- However, technologically intensive services were said to be affected by this racial strive much less because 1. there were not many Non-Slavs in the first place, and 2. these services generally does not tolerate racism as much as regular services.
- The compulsory military service, instead of alleviating national identity by making the service a melting pot, exarbated it instead because of the racial issues enlisted conscripts encountered during their service.
How accurate do y'all think it is? Love to hear you opinion.