The lack of underlying militarism in a society as cynical and
would-be materialist as that of Russia today should not be
surprising. The Soviet Union was notoriously a society that, in
theory at least, was in a state of permanent military
semi-mobilization, both economic and ideological. When that state and
its controlling ideology collapsed, society and culture swung
ineluctably to the opposite extreme. In the words of Igor Kon, "Under
Soviet rule, Russia was the most hypocritical country in the world.
Now, it is the most cynical." This effect was apparent, long before
the Soviet Union fell, in the steadily diminishing psychological
returns, especially among Russian youth, from the endless flow of
patriotic material on the Second World War emitted by the state in
the Brezhnev years, and from the extreme disillusionment resulting
from the losses and futility of the Afghan War.

Soviet propaganda concerning the memory of the "Great Patriotic War"
also contained its own central flaw from the point of view of
maintaining a military spirit in society. The constant repetition of
Russia's immense sacrifices and suffering in that war was intended to
strengthen national pride; but "twenty million dead" is not a figure
calculated to encourage a frivolous attitude to warfare. During the
Afghan War, by contrast, the regime was careful to conceal the number
of Soviet casualties.

Since the Soviet collapse, Russian television has contributed, partly
unwittingly, to spreading fear and hatred of war. Concerning
Chechnya, by the end of 1995 most Russian channels had become
agencies of state propaganda in what they said: the fixed
characterization of the Chechen forces as "bandit formations", the
admiring interviews with Russian troops, and the reporting without
comment of the most outrageously false official statements. But what
they have been showing is different. Most Western TV stations, at
least since Vietnam, have presented a relatively edited and sanitized
visual version of war, and Western armed forces have tried to keep
them as far as possible from the firing line. Not so Russian TV.
Whether because of basic honesty, courage, sensationalism, or sheer
brutish insensibility, it tends to show the unvarnished truth--and
several years of looking at piles of brains, charred bodies, and
severed limbs on the evening news about Karabakh, Tajikistan,
Abkhazia, and finally Chechnya has not left Russian viewers with many
romantic illusions about warfare. Chechnya therefore may be said to
have provided a fresh argument to those Western journalists who argue
that really forthright, even gruesome, coverage of war is in fact a
force for peace.

The lack of military spirit in Russia and the Russian army today

Essay Types: Essay