SOMO #3

Wagnsson, Charlotte. "Russian political language and public opinion on the West, NATO, and Chechnya: securitisation theory reconsidered." PhD diss., University of Stockholm, 2000.

Chapter 5, "Russian Security and the "Inner Abroad": The Case of Chechnya." 135-184.

This chapter of Wagnsson's dissertation examines Russian's feelings toward ethnic Chechens in the early-mid 1990s. All tables analysed were polls conducted by VTSIOM or Levada Center. I feel that this information might be able to indicate change, or possible SOMO influence. 

What I discovered was an overwhelming feeling of apathy/goodwill towards Chechens and condemnation for the Russian invasion from the start. Just a month after the invasion, 52% of respondents felt that they should stand up against the military operation in Chechnya when asked what a true Russian patriot should do, whereas only 19% called for supporting the operation. This idea seemed to stick; in 1996 54% of respondents described Russia's policies towards Chechnya as "completely wrong" and 29% as "right in principle, but poorly and foolishly pursued." Whats interesting is the seeming spike in those who supported the idea theoretically but condemned the execution of the invasion. 

The polls also demonstrate governmental blame for the conflict in Chechnya. When asked who was to blame for the bloodshed in Chechnya, 47% claimed Yeltsin and his entourage, and second at 24% blamed Dudayev and his field commanders. It seems that poll respondents tended to recognize that the conflict was less caused by the so-called enemy, and more by their own government.

Finally, Wagnsson argues that Russians generally did not feel antipathy towards Chechens. In a 1992 survey only 2% of respondents indicated that they felt unpleasant feelings toward Chechens. As with any poll its possible for respondents to lie or to perhaps interpret the question differently than intended, but a number so low as 2% should indicate extreme difficulty for the government to convince society of ethnic divisions as a justification for war. However, this lack of unpleasant feelings did not translate into actual sympathy. When asked which side they sympathized with, 70% said Russia whereas only 8% said Chechnya.

Ушакин, Сергей. «Человека с человеком сближает горе»: солдатские матери и позитивизация утраты>>, журнал «Гендерные исследования» № 13, 2005. http://www.gender.univer.kharkov.ua/gurnal/gurnal-13-06.pdf

Amid the question of who to blame for the deaths of soldiers is arising a second question, "how do we remember them?" Whereas SOMO took the personal and made it political, some mothers are resisting this politicization in favor of experiencing a more personal loss. This is important insofar as it demonstrates how soldiers' deaths are being detached from their cause of death. 


The experience of loss often does not just reside in world of emotions; its is tangible, it can be seen and felt. Relics, statues, cemeteries, etc.. all exist as physical manifestations of loss. Turning loss into a tangible product is thus a process and a goal in compartmentalizing loss. Relegating physical spaces as appropriate grieving places is fascinating; this demarcation becomes a refuge, a safe space to grieve so that other places can exist without grief. Metropolitan SOMO, however, broke this trend by making the entire public sphere their place to grieve- not just the cemeteries. 


Though Oushakine argues that SOMO embraced Zizek's "positivization" theory in that SOMO turned loss into productivity, I think this productivity should be analyzed under a consequentialist lens. People experience grief in numerous ways and while it is difficult (and perhaps unwise) to definitively disparage different mourning styles, it is possible to disagree. Since SOMO's very foundation, it's core, was birthed from trauma, it's hard for SOMO to escape this identity of political emotionalism. A common criticism from the Russian government was that SOMO simply could not be objective about political decision making, thus hindering SOMO's legitimacy in the eyes of the government. 


Oushakine's body of work often evokes a discussion of victimage as it relates to mothers. The internalization of victimhood can have serious effects (see: Wendy Brown, "Wounded Attachments," 1993), and I'm curious to further investigate how SOMO's blaming the government manifested in how SOMO perceived itself.

The Russian Military: Power and Policy. 

ed. Steven E. Miller and Dmitri V. Trenin

MIT Press: Cambridge, 2004.

Baev, Pavel K. "The Trajectory of the Russian Military: Downsizing, Degeneration, and Defeat." 

Baev largely argues that in the 1990s the Russian military didn't need reform, but rather a complete reconstruction. He argues that discussions of reform simply didn't go far enough and actually masked the larger cultural issues in the military.

One thing that struck me as odd was Baev's claim that Chechnya was not a major issue in the 1996 presidential election. He argues that fear of backsliding into communism overshadowed the immediacy of Chechnya, and that military reform could be post-poned under this threat. Though this bait-and-switch approach doesn't seem far fetched, the idea that Chechnya didn't weigh heavily on Russians' minds in the election does seem far fetched. According to a 1996 VTSIOM survey on the question "What do you primarily expect of a president for which you could imagine to vote?" the number one answer at 58% was`stopping the war in Chechnya. In contrast to Baev's argument, it seems Chechnya did weigh heavily on voters minds.

The presidential election aside, Baev attributes lack fo military reform to the tension between Sergeev's ministry of defense and Gen. Kvashnin's General Staff. Baev writes that whereas Sergeev "had little interest in in small wars or peace operations, and above all embraced the military's bureaucratic values," Kvashnin "attracted 'warriors' determined to rebuild Russia's conventional forces and was seemingly uninterested in modernizing the armed forces." Given such little motivation for reform, "the military's upper echelon preferred to live in a fantasy world rather than engage in difficult debates abut the future of the armed forces." But what is SOMO's relation to this? There are many reports and articles about SOMO's meetings with lower ranking officers, but it seems their influence did not extend to the top. I'm curious to discover if/how Sergeev and Kvashnin perceived SOMO.

Golts, Aleksandr. "The Social and Political Condition of the Russian Military." 

Golts begins his article stating that "the USSR was, in effect, a military camp in which everything was subjugated to the interests of the defense sector." Describing modern Russia as in a state of pure war (see Paul Virilio and Sylvere Lotringer, "Pure War," Semiotext(e): 1997) indicates that the culture exists as one totally subservient to the military machine. This is not a totally new idea, but Golts further explains that under this legacy "reform" simply meant preserving the same basic elements(quantity over quality) of the army under new and difficult conditions. Like Baev, Golts argues that the military resource deficiency should have spurred massive innovations in the 1990s, no such changes occurred because the military high command did not want to abandon their primary goal for the military- quantity.

Golts also discusses how performing alternate civil service instead of military service created even more adverse conditions for conscripts. Those completing alternate service had to serve twice as long as those in the military and were likely to just end up in non-combat military service(the legislation ensured that conscripts would not be sparred from work in the organizations and institutions of the ministry of defense). Golts does not explicitly explain, but I wondered what the relationship would be like between conscripts who went into military service and those who chose alternate service, only to end up in the same barracks. Did the prevalence of dedovshchina spread down to effect alternate servers? However, Golts later brings up an interesting paradox; the right of the state to call on civilians for military service is largely unchallenged, yet "Russian society does not condemn those who seek to avoid the draft." 

This discussion of alternative service is particularly interesting given that the criticisms given by SOMO(that I've seen so far) generally laud alternate service and don't express knowledge of other problems associated with it. 

To further explain the cultural problems of the military, Golts argues that the officer-conscript relationship is easily susceptible to manipulation. He says that officers decide television programming appropriate for conscripts, and often the political comments given by officers are often enough to sway the votes of conscripts. This is an interesting aspect I had not considered before, and perhaps explains why the conscripts who did make it into service (rather than avoiding it) did not lead mass revolts. 

Golts ends the article the same way he began- asserting that "Russian generals continue to think within the context of World War II (or World War III)." As long as so much importance is placed on the glory of past wars mixed with the imminent threat of others, the military will maintain a sacred space is society, largely beyond external criticism. 

Arbatov, Alexei G. "Military Reform: From Crisis to Stagnation."

To explain why larger reforms are not made in the military, Arbatov claims that no one in Russia except the ministry of defense has a truly informed understanding of legitimate external threats to the state. Lack of transparency and information sharing seems largely to blame here. If civilians are kept in the dark on imminent external security concerns, then there doesn't seem to be much immediacy to drastically improve the military structure. Second, Arbatov argues that even though society is overwhelmingly aware of military degradation (though not the true extent of it), they tend to have ambiguous qualitative demands rather than specific demands with sound financial planning. If we can attribute broader societal awareness to SOMO, is it much of a success if societal demands fall flat?

Military economics is the dominant theme of Arbatov's article. His clear priority is providing more funds to defense and re-allocating what money is given. He argues that since the military does not receive adequate funding it has to spend its limited resources on preserving the current configuration instead of investing in future military capabilities. Ultimately, Arbatov concludes that the financial aspects of reform is the biggest obstacle to change. In addition to fiscal issues, Arbatov cites the military elites' inability to adjust military strategy and policy as another major impediment. 

Yet Arbatov doesn't think the military is too far gone. He claims that parliament and the public are only slightly aware of how little training conscripts get and the failure of the state armaments program and that if information on military issues was "made public, at least to the same extent that similar information in the United States and West European countries is made available, them the mass media, public opinion, and the legislative branch of government would surely provide pressure to substantially increase funding for upgrading Russia's military capabilities." A few thoughts on this claim: 1) He argues that the public would want the military to receive more funding for training and technological development, but not necessarily for restructuring the organization or increasing wages; instead, the ultimate goal of national security is still above substantial reforms, 2) his statement implies that a unified societal call for improving the military would not necessarily fall on deaf ears, but could be taken seriously, 3) most interesting, that Russians would have a unified voice on the issue, as opposed to reacting in a multiplicity of ways.

Like Golts, Arbatov argues that "military reformers strongly favor qualitative improvements in Russia's forces, but this does not always translate directly into support for the new acquisition of major weapons platforms." 

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What I found most striking about each of these articles from The Russian Military: Power and Policy is that the authors see military reform as something to be conducted by and secluded to the military. To some this may seem self evident, but larger cultural trends should not go unexamined, nor should civilians be shut out of debate.

These articles also raise the debate of piecemeal reform vs. wholesale change. Reform has often been described to me as 're-arranging deck chairs on the Titanic.' Though hyperbolic, it emphasizes the futility of reform if serious foundational issues exist.

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Caiazza, Amy. Mothers and Soldiers: Gender, Citizenship, and Civil Society in Contemporary Russia. Routledge: New York, 2002.

Upcoming book review!