1Despite the title, this book is neither an institutional nor a combat history of the Imperial Russian Army over the last six decades of its existence. Rather, it is a social history of the army’s officer corps, and, to a lesser extent, of the army’s soldiery, with an emphasis on relations between the two. The author, Roger Reese, an acknowledged specialist on the Red Army, disputes conventional wisdom over the impact of the Great War and the February Revolution of 1917 in undermining the authority of the officer corps and igniting a soldiers’ revolt. For Reese the roots of rebellion and collapse dated to serf emancipation in 1861, followed by a prolonged span during which the officer corps failed to adapt itself to social change and altered professional requirements. In effect, officers clung to self-serving notions of noble status and privilege rather than elevate leadership standards and practice to contend with the realities of a new model army recruited on the basis of a universal service obligation. Seen in this light, officer-soldier relations never rose much above the level of noble landowner and obligated serf. The officer always remained a “barin,” while the peasant soldier always remained a “muzhik.” The soldier was not a citizen, but a subject, an entity requiring rote subjugation. The reckoning would come in 1917.

2At issue in Reese’s argument is the role of the Great War either as mere accelerator or as grand animator, with the capacity to transform. Few, if any, historians would question the long history of dysfunction before and after emancipation that characterized relations between Russian officers and Russian soldiers. While acknowledging continuities by fits and starts after 1861, mainstream interpretation, dominated by Allan Wildman and Mikhail Frenkin, would hold that Great War-induced stresses and dislocations amounted to something more than culmination. The magnitude and impact of various challenges were sufficient in themselves to engender revolutionary change. In contrast, Reese, armed with an array of new sources that he claims are less biased than earlier émigré-weighted materials, sets out to prove the case for acceleration.

3Reese’s argument resonates well within the confines a stagnating dynastic army before the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05. Although the reforms of War Minister (1861-1881) D. A. Miliutin laid the groundwork for an army of citizen soldiers and professional cadre officers, the transformational potential remained unfulfilled. Officer pay and social status stagnated, while opportunities for career advancement and higher professional education remained severely constrained. This was the army depicted so eloquently in the writings of Vsevolod Garshin and Alexander Kuprin. Transition to a genuine citizen army ran aground on the shoals of habit, neglect, severely constrained resources, and the myriad problems associated with making compliant soldiers of illiterate peasants. Even as officers debated the merits of “reason versus fist,” demeaning punishments and savage disciplinary methods too often predominated. In an era when the War Ministry mandated the burning of unit libraries, Reese perhaps judges the officer corps too harshly for its internal lapses in promoting professional and institutional self-improvement. More to his credit, he does emphasize the importance of the regiment as both extended family and “home away from village” for conscripted peasants.

4Far Eastern defeat in 1904-05 was the Russian military equivalent of “a fire bell in the night,” warning against stagnation and complacency. However, the brief inter-war period between 1906 and 1914 afforded little space for genuine reform. In addition to lack of time, there were two severe constraints. As always, one was resources, while the other was a system in which the Emperor as commander-in-chief was unwilling either to cede authority or to preside over fundamental change. The result for the Imperial Russian Army was a series of half-reforms which corrected some deficiencies but left others half-touched or even unaddressed. Consequently, as one of the leading military figures of the era remarked, “half-measures yielded half-results.” The officer corps remained introspective, jealous of its own prerogatives, and divided against itself. Inter alia, as Reese would have it (via John Lynn), there were apostles of virtue, especially officers of the General Staff, who would support careers and professional advancement open to talent. There were also advocates of honor, especially officers of the Guards, who would maintain the hegemony of traditional élites. This duality, which aptly characterizes differences between two of the more prominent cohorts within the officer corps, is an improvement over Norman Stone’s “patricians” and “praetorians.” However, such concepts shortchange coverage of what might be called the “plebeians,” who populated officer ranks in line infantry regiments.

5The Great War marks the period in which Reese’s larger argument breaks down. The conflict witnessed unprecedented change in the social characteristics of the officer corps. Battlefield losses wiped out or sidelined a generation of experienced company-grade cadre officers (those closest to soldiers), replacing them with “wartime officers.” By 1917 they amounted to more than 60 percent of an officer corps whose numbers were now between four and eight times greater (depending upon whether pre-war reserve ensigns were counted against the base) than those of 1914. Indeed, during the Great War, Russia created more officers than had been created in the entire history of the Imperial Russian Army. Meanwhile, the rank-and-file remained 80 percent peasant in origin, 60 percent illiterate, and somewhere near wholly self-interested in outlook. Outgunned, out-supplied, and out-generaled, peasant soldiers were left to demonstrate that they “knew how to die,” as one veteran commentator observed. By early 1917, a combination of factors, including steep losses, reorganization, and the nature of trench warfare, had deprived line infantry regiments of their identities and of their capacity for nurture. The majority of combat troops now had fewer than six months’ frontline service. Judged by levels of training and discipline, the combat readiness of these troops lay somewhere between a militia and an armed mob. Soldiers accorded only grudging respect and obedience to their officers, the majority of whom in close proximity were now peasants like themselves. It is probably plausible to assert that differences between them sprang less from class antagonisms than from an ingrained culture-based distrust for authority.

6While Reese does not ignore these and related issues, the difference between his views and those of an earlier generation are largely differences in emphases. He might explain the fissures and breakdowns that led to collapse in 1917, but he does not explain the tactical coherence and proficiency of old regime cadre officers and peasant soldiers who at lower levels gave good account for themselves at the outset of the Great War. The gulf between war’s beginning and war’s near-end cries out for additional analysis and assessment. Even in light of new materials, the preponderance of evidence still lies on the interpretive side of the Wildmans and Frenkins. Nonetheless, in staking out the ground and proposing fresh approaches and insights Reese has made an important contribution to the literature.