Conscientious objection policies and the Soviet national ethos

The introduction of a civilian alternative to military service in East‐Central Europe at the end of the 1980s, and the resistance to it in the Soviet Union, and then Russia, is frequently taken as evidence of the strength of the civic culture of the East‐Central European countries, and of its weakness in Russia. But the latter has a long historical tradition of conscientious objection, and other factors, too, suggest more conjunctural reasons for the difference. One in particular stands out: the role of campaigns for conscientious objection in the struggle for independence waged both by East‐Central European countries and some component republics of the Soviet Union. These nationalist conscientious objectors called into question not only the ethos of the Soviet military as a military, but also as a Soviet military.