The Red Army

TWO preliminary observations are necessary to this study of the armed forces of the Union of Socialist Soviet Repub lics. First of all, one must bear in mind that statistics pre pared in Soviet Russia are often unreliable and even dishonest. Bolsheviks themselves make sarcastic comments on this fact. Soviet authorities do not think of statistical data as the basis for scientific deductions, but as something to be arranged so as to serve special propaganda ends. Only by analyzing statistics, comparing them with each other, and then modifying them in view of the special conditions which exist in Russia and in view of what we knew about former conditions in the old Russia, can one form a true picture. second observation to be made is that: one must drop for the time being the conception of Law which is natural to every citizen of a legally constituted State. It must be remembered that the Soviet is a revolutionary r?gime whose inevitable companions are administrative arbitrariness and general lawlessness of life. For all their impressive wording, the articles of the many codes and statutes often remain a dead letter, either on account of the difficulty of executing their provisions or because of the resistance of local authorities. In any case, between the date of the promul gation of a law and its practical and integral application a long period usually elapses. All this is particularly true in the case of the laws which attempt to regulate a citizen's military obligation to the State over a period of years. fundamental Soviet law which regulates the discharge of military obligations is the Law on Compulsory Military Service of September 18, 1925. According to it, the armed forces of the Soviet Union are defined as The Workmen's and Peasants' Red

Political science · Soviet and Russian History · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies