Militarizing Men: Gender, Conscription, and War in Post-Soviet Russia

253 Pages·2011·1.927 MB·English

by  Maya Eichler

Militarizing Men

M i l i ta r i z i n g M e n
Gender, Conscription, and War
in Post-Soviet Russia
Maya eichler
Stanford UniverSity PreSS
Stanford, California
Stanford University Press
Stanford, California
©2012 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system without the prior written permission of
Stanford University Press.
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free, archival-quality paper
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Eichler, Maya, author
Militarizing men : Gender, conscription, and war in post-Soviet Russia /
Maya Eichler.
pages cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 978-0-8047-7619-6 (cloth : alk. paper) —
isbn 978-0-8047-7620-2 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Draft—Russia (Federation). 2. Masculinity—Russia (Federation).
3. Gender identity—Russia (Federation). 4. Militarism—Russia (Federation).
5. Chechnia (Russia)—History—Civil War, 1994—-Social aspects. I. Title
ub345.r9e53 2012
947.086—dc22 2011008956
Typeset at Stanford University Press in 10/14 Minion
I dedicate the book to the men and women in Russia and around the
world who challenge the power of militaries and resist the gendered
logic of militarization—sometimes at the risk of their own lives.
And to Priya Poesie, with hope for a less militarized future.

Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction: The Personal and Public Politics of
Militarizing Men 1
1 Gender and Militarization in the Soviet Union 15
2 Militarized Masculinity and State Leadership in the
Russian-Chechen Wars 35
3 The Societal Crisis of Militarized Masculinity: Conscription,
Economic Transformation, and the Russian-Chechen Wars 59
4 The Soldiers’ Mothers Movement: Contesting and
Reproducing Militarized Gender Roles 85
5 Veterans of the Chechen Wars: Questionable Warriors or a
Model of Masculinity? 108
Conclusion: Masculinity, Soldiering, and War in
Post-Soviet Russia 136
Notes 145
Referencees 195
Index 219

acknowledgments
i
firSt beCaMe intereSted in the topic of gender and militariza-
tion in Russia in the mid-1990s. I had friends who were active in
the Russian peace movement, mostly Quakers from Russia and abroad with
whom I attended various workshops and retreats. Many of the Russian men I
met in this context had turned to the Quakers for help in either evading con-
scription or fighting for their right to conscientious objector status. Through
one of my friends I visited the offices of soldiers’ mothers who were active in
St. Petersburg. I was deeply impressed with these women’s work and their
gumption to take on the military. My interest in draft evasion and the sol-
diers’ mothers movement re-emerged years later when I was introduced to
feminist International Relations scholarship on the role of gender in processes
of militarization. In particular, the work of Cynthia Enloe and Sandra Whit-
worth inspired this project. Reading their work, I found myself preoccupied
with the question of what made the challenges to the military and state by
soldiers’ mothers so powerful. As I realized later, these women were challeng-
ing not only notions of patriotic motherhood but also something even more
fundamental—namely, the common-sense idea that serving in the military is
a citizenship duty of men and is important to their socialization as men.
I am enormously grateful to the following people who read earlier drafts
of this book and generously shared their comments and suggestions: Claudia
Brunner, Aurélie Campana, Deborah Cowen, Alison Crosby, Cynthia Enloe,
Wenona Giles, Patrick James, Nadejda Marinova, Jennifer G. Mathers, Ananya
Mukherjee-Reed, Sergei Plekhanov, Laura Sjoberg, Lisa McIntosh Sundstrom,