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SOCIETY
4. THE SOCIAL STATUS OF MILITARY OFFICERS - RAS 13, JRL 6571
SOURCE. Sergei S. Solovyov, "The Russian Officer Today: A Sociological Portrait," Insight Vol. 2 issue 8 at http://www.psan.org
AUTHOR. The author is a chief consultant of the General Directorate of Education of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, where he heads a unit within the Department of Research in Military Sociology that monitors the socio-economic and legal situation of army personnel, persons retired from military service and their families. He is co-author (with I. V. Obraztsov) of Rossiiskaia armiia ot Afganistana do Chechni: Sotsiologicheskii analiz [The Russian Army from Afghanistan to Chechnya: A Sociological Analysis] (Moscow, 1997). His e-mail address is SSolovyov@lukoil.com
The author discusses whether officers belong to the middle class of contemporary Russian society. It is widely assumed that they do, and indeed in the Soviet period they were a highly educated, well-paid, and prestigious social group.
However, survey data collected by the Ministry of Defense since 1991 reveal that the average officer's family lives on an income 1.5--2 times greater than the minimum per capita income. Most experts set the lower limit of a middle class income at 3--4 times the minimum per capita income. By this criterion officers belong to the lower class.
Moreover, the profession of officer has lost its prestige. In 1975 high school graduates rated army officer as a moderately prestigious occupation (with 57 points out of 100). By 1996 it had fallen to the bottom of the list (with 36 points). This loss of prestige is reflected in the kinds of jobs open to officers on leaving the armed forces. Diplomas from military academies are not highly valued in the civilian world. A former commander will at best be offered the position of personnel manager in a company, and more likely that of security guard.
Nevertheless there is a certain sense in which officers do still belong to the middle class. Their rank gives them social power and responsibility that hardly correspond to lower class status. This is a striking discrepancy, and one that merits further exploration. Is it not dangerous to entrust a group of people with real power while paying and respecting them so little?
Next the author asks whether officers represent a special caste of Russian society. He replies that they do not constitute a closed caste. On the contrary, the army is the most accessible route to upward social mobility in Russia today. That may well be so, and I have the impression that the same is true of the United States. But the author answers a question different from the one he asks. He asks whether officers are a SPECIAL caste, and replies that they are not a CLOSED caste. They are not a caste at all in the strict sense, but do they really not see themselves as a special group or "corporate body"?
This brings us to the author's last question. Do officers have a specific mentality? Here he makes some careful distinctions.
Most officers have preserved an attachment to the values of the army as a corporate and professional body. However, military service has become less attractive as a route to technical specialization. The romantic image of the officer has waned, and military service is now viewed in a more pragmatic light. This is connected to the "de-politicization" of the armed forces that took place in the early 1990s. Between 1989 and 1992, the proportion of officers who advocated an ideology or a specific political program decreased from 70% to 7--8%. Nevertheless, Russian officers do take an interest in politics, and tend to support "patriotic" stances. So the answer to the question seems to be yes.
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