Health of the nation

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

At the VII Congress of Soviets, held in Moscow in January - February 1935, military commissar K. Voroshilov read out a new law, where one of the innovations is to reduce the draft age from 1936 by 1 - 2 years. Until 1936, the conscription age in the USSR remained at the level of conscription into the tsarist army, i.e. at the age of 21.

Such a high draft age, reaching almost 23 years, existed only in the USSR. At that time, in France the draft age was, on average, 20, 25 years, as well as in Germany, Italy and Japan; in Romania this age fluctuates between 20 and 21 years, but it is allowed to decrease not only in wartime, but also in peacetime. Tsarist Russia, with extremely low physical development and complete illiteracy of the then recruits, moved from 1912 to the 20-year conscription age.

What is the reason for the decrease in the draft age? And what is the goal of lowering the draft age? A bit of history:

In the Imperial Society of Practical Physicians, in 1911, an interesting report was read by the historian of law and medicine, Professor H. Ya. Novombergsky, and here are some excerpts from this report:

“Russia is in a dangerous position, it is systematically degenerating.

The loop of economic, social and political factors has tragically tightly intertwined and crushes the mighty people. Poor Russia, following the path of impoverishment, is making more and more sacrifices to the developing process of degeneration.

Placed next to the happy West of Europe, Russia is more than striking in numbers:

Deaths per 1000 population:

In England - 13, 5; in Germany - 16, 2; in France - 17, 9; in Heb. Russia - 30, 5.

Per 100,000 people die from acute infectious diseases:

In France - 36, 4; in England - 78, 1; in Germany - 102, 4; in Russia - 635 people!

The striking development of the process of degeneration of Russia is evidenced by the progressively growing number of rejected recruits:

From 1874 to 1883 there were 13.1%

From 1884 to 1893 - - 17.4%

From 1894 to 1901 - - 19.4%

In the 20th century, this percentage exceeds 20%.

In 1909 it rose to 24.2%, and in 1910 to 23.5%. Consequently, almost 1/4 of the recruits called up are not fit for military service.

- If this killer percentage increases within 30 years, then - asks the speaker, - can we safely expect the time when young people called up for military service will be rejected by half or 3/4 of their total number?

We need urgent, serious work to save the body of the nation from degeneration."

According to a medical-statistical study, the requirements for conscripts since the beginning of the century have been significantly reduced, the percentage of conscripts recognized as unfit for service continued to rise.

Academician Prince Tarkhanov in his article "The Needs of National Nutrition" gives eloquent figures of the malnutrition of a rural resident of Russia three or more times in comparison with the countries of Western Europe (Fig. 1). Even the nomadic peoples of Russia, the Rossiya newspaper for 1901 confirms the malnutrition of the Russian peasant in relation to the Kyrgyz (Kazakhs) (Fig. 2.).

Eighteen years after the fall of the tsarist regime, V. M. Molotov said at the VII Congress of Soviets of the USSR:

“… Medical examination of the workers drafted into the army showed in Moscow, Leningrad, Moscow and Ivanovo regions. Gorky Territory and Ukraine, that their average weight over the past 6 - 7 years has increased by one and a half to two kilograms, and the chest circumference has become larger from one and a half to two and a half centimeters."

A comparative table of the physical development of Soviet and pre-revolutionary Russian youth of draft age is very characteristic. For all three indicators of physical development, the Red Army has left far behind all European armies (Fig. 3).

First, “we get an additional annual contingent of young people to strengthen our reserve personnel, which is very important in our time” (K. Voroshilov). For reference. Until 1936, with a draft age of 21 years and a maximum age of 40, the state in the military register of the USSR had only 19 ages of citizens liable for military service. Meanwhile, for example, France has 28 ages, and Romania has 29 ages. By reducing the draft age by two years in 1936, the USSR brought the number of ages liable for military service to 21, still lagging far behind other countries in this respect.

This law, by lowering the draft age and increasing the period of state in the military register from 40 to 50 years, thereby establishes another eleven ages liable for military service and brings their number to 32. This is due to the fact that in the old days 40-year-old men were already exhausted 12-hour working day, under our system of work, men are still full of energy at 50 and become true professionals and craftsmen, mentors of the young shift.

Secondly, significantly fewer married people burdened with family will enter active military service.

Until 1936, when the age of many conscripts reached almost 23 years and when “many recruits had two, and some managed to have three children” (K. Voroshilov), each regular conscription distracted many married people from their families. This did not coincide with either the interests of the family or the interests of military service. The Red Army soldier, free from worries about his family, of course, with great zeal gives himself up to his beloved military work, with a calm soul works on his military and political training.

Thirdly, our young people themselves prefer to serve out active military service at an earlier age, since by the age of 20-21 young people in this case will already have the opportunity to finally choose a profession, work in it in the future without interruption, start a family, enter a university. - in a word, arrange life at your own discretion.

The general educational training of conscripts is eloquently characterized by the following data on the draft contingent of the last year: illiterate - 0.5 percent; semi-literate - 6, 2 percent; with primary and incomplete secondary education - 88 percent; with completed secondary and higher education - 3, 3 percent.

Thus, the vast majority of our draft youth (93.5 percent) have ample general education training for military training.

In 1923, the All-Union Council of Physical Education was created, consisting of representatives of the trade unions, the Communist Party and the Komsomol, on the one hand, and the people's commissariats of education, health and defense, on the other.

Under the influence of this Council and largely due to the People's Commissars of the Union and Autonomous Republics, physical exercises of all kinds have become the topic of numerous scientific studies and literally hundreds of textbooks and brochures.

Daily exercise was becoming a social responsibility, which was called by countless loudspeakers of the state radio network every morning across the country. But the most striking manifestation of this universality of physical education has been the increase in organized participation in all sports and games over the past few years.

Thousands pushed for voluntary military training and shooting competitions. Widely developed gliding and parachuting and amateur pilots and technical types like radio and modeling. Millions of young people hiked on holiday and annual vacations.

Three features are striking for the observer. In the Soviet Union, the development of games and sports is deliberately based on the deep conviction of young people themselves that this contributes to the preservation of health and therefore forms part of a civic duty.

The second feature is the close connection not only of physical exercise, but also of organized games with medical supervision and research; the slogan is: "There is no physical education without medical supervision"; “We are not only rebuilding society on new economic foundations; we are correcting the human race scientifically. "This determines not only the existence of several institutes conducting research in different areas of physical education, but also a systematic medical examination in the spring and autumn of all members of the sports society and the presence of a permanent doctor in every trade union rest house.

The third feature is the heartfelt support, assistance and financial subsidies that are everywhere provided to this organization, which so quickly became national, not only by the People's Commissars and People's Commissars of Health of the Union and Autonomous Republics, but also by all government bodies that can help in some way.

Leave aside political battles, opinions and debates. An eight-hour working day, the abolition of child labor and a wide front of education, full medical care and all-round care for a person - this is the result of Soviet power.

Thousands of pages of friends and enemies of the Soviet regime have been written, several thousand foreign journalists have visited the country of the Soviets and their opinions, eyewitnesses of the country's formation, are very instructive:

Even at the beginning of the formation of Soviet power, in 1921, Brailsford notes in his book that the policy of the USSR in this area has no precedent. For centuries, in all countries, the privileged ruling class has never seriously wanted to give the children of manual workers the same opportunities that its own children enjoy.

Even the foremost liberals in England at the time used the term “ladder of education” to describe their ideas as a system that helped the most capable children of workers to climb above their class. No matter what they plan, no matter what the few idealists preach, no one seriously strives to educate the entire mass of children of the working class in accordance with the requirements of the highest culture of our time.

“In my opinion,” wrote Mr. Brailsford, “the most remarkable thing about Russia is that the socialist revolution immediately and instinctively set about realizing the ideal of universal education, an ideal that throughout the rest of Europe is perverted by class interests and prejudices, every just observer gave tribute to the efforts of the Bolsheviks to send illiterate people to school.

But their plans are much bolder. They intend to create conditions for every Russian child that would give him the opportunity to develop his physical and mental abilities indefinitely from infancy to adolescence. They want the children of the poorest Russian workers not to be deprived of any of the comforts, none of the pleasures, none of the incentives that develop the child's abilities in a middle-class European cultured family.

They are convinced that at the cost of tremendous self-sacrifice, the entire younger generation of Russia can be raised to a high cultural level."

Mr. Brailsford did not forget to point out that the Communists will have to overcome many difficulties.

“They will not immediately,” he wrote, “realize their plan. Poverty hinders them. They suffer from a lack of teachers who share their views. It will take many years before a primitive, abandoned Russian village can assimilate even the very beginnings of civilization. But they achieved one thing. They have broken down the barriers that class and poverty have erected against education."

It is Mr. Brailsford's thought that the true meaning of Soviet communism lies in its concept of civilization for the nation as a whole.

"Until now, Europe has had no cultured peoples, but only a few relatively cultural classes."

G. N. Brailsford, "The Russian Workers' Republic", 1921. London

“The purchases of a collective farmer are very indicative. It never occurs to any of them to buy a horse. He has no right, as the owner, to buy a horse. He is a true farmer, but he also would not think to buy a plow, as a factory worker would save money to buy a turbine.

In other words, the Russian peasant will be able to spend less on the acquisition of the means of production. Instead, he will eat better, dress better, and live more comfortably.

The Russians say that this is another factor in overcoming the capitalist instincts of the muzhik. I would like to emphasize the significance of these psychological changes. This is a real revolution in national psychology."

(Louis Fisher, The Evolution of Collectivization, British Rushen Gazette, September 1933).

“One of the reasons why a relatively small amount of agricultural products enter the market is that the consumption of products by the peasantry itself has increased. In the pre-war period, despite the fact that Russia was considered one of the main suppliers of grain in Europe, the actual producer of Russian grain, the peasant who constitutes the majority of the population of Russia, was starving … After the revolution … there was an improvement in the nutritional conditions of the peasant population … Russian peasants … forced vegetarianism.

The author confirms that they are now eating more meat and oil than before.

(A. Yugov, "Economic trends in Soviet Russia", 1930).

“Before the war, Russia produced … from one fifteenth to one twentieth of a pair of shoes per capita per year. The vast majority of the rural population did not wear boots, but wicker bast shoes. Only wealthy peasants had leather shoes.

In 1932, the Soviet Union, with its much smaller territory than pre-war Russia, produced 74 million pairs, that is, nine times more than before the revolution. However, the demand for footwear has yet to be met. Out of 74 million pairs of boots and shoes, about 20 million went to children.

Almost all school-age children are provided with shoes through schools. Currently, production in the Soviet Union is half a pair of shoes per capita. This is ten times more than before the war, but this is still not enough. Not only workers, but also peasants want (and many of them already have) several pairs of shoes: for work, for a holiday, etc.

(V. Nodel, "Supply and Trade in Soviet Russia").

… "The traveler was struck by the impeccable cleanliness of white blouses, which surpasses the cleanliness of ordinary clothes in those countries that are said to have more soap in them than in the USSR" …

Maurice Hindus, The Great Offensive, 1933.

“We have seen how strongly Soviet communism in its various social organizations relies on the development of the body and spirit, the abilities and character of the individual child, adolescent man or woman, serving them as citizens, production workers, consumers and even as political leaders in its various social organizations.

Pursuing the goal of the maximum development of each person, all kinds of social organizations of the Soviet Union strive to raise healthy members of society, equip everyone with education and culture and guarantee them at any age and with all the vicissitudes of life that level of social security at which only continuous individual development is possible."

(N. M. Shvernik, secretary of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions, Greetings to foreign delegates 1933).

In any case, the policy of the Soviet government is completely different in this sense from the policy of any other government in the world and definitely strives for the culture to become not necessarily the same or equal for everyone, but truly universal;

that none of the means of enhancing the culture of an adult's life or stimulating the development of youth or awakening the abilities of a child is hidden and denied to any inhabitant of the USSR;

so that, as this will allow the growth of material well-being, these funds are made available for use at the disposal of, literally, everyone in accordance with his individual abilities.

The Bolsheviks were convinced that persistent self-sacrifice on the part of the older generation made it possible to raise the entire younger generation of the USSR to a higher level of culture.

And they achieved a lot: the country became the country of full literacy before anyone else, under the auspices of free medicine and further education.

You are still using the results of their labor, which are still unattainable in many countries.