Conscription

CONSCRIPTION, the drawing of male citizens for active military service. Conscription is called regular conscription when citizens who have reached a certain age, the so-called conscription age as established by law in a given country, are called up for military service, and conscription during mobilization, when persons from the reserve (usually several age groups) are called up for military service to bring the army up to strength upon the announcement of mobilization. Conscription during mobilization is carried out on the basis of special provisions. In peacetime, the term conscription can only apply to countries where universal military service has been established. In countries where the system of recruitment by volunteers is in effect, the recruitment of volunteers is called enlistment. Regular conscription in the USSR is carried out once a year between September 1 and November 1, on the basis of the law on compulsory military service. It is preceded (in January) by the registration and assignment to conscription districts of all citizens liable for conscription in the current year. Registration and assignment are carried out by local registration authorities. Those assigned to a conscription district receive a draft medical record form and are obliged, during the period remaining before conscription, to undergo a medical examination by local physicians according to the program of this record. This preliminary examination aims to identify among those liable for conscription persons who are ill and for whom special therapeutic and preventive measures need to be carried out in the period remaining before conscription, and to facilitate the work of determining health status at the time of conscription. Regular conscription is carried out by conscription commissions organized under local military administration bodies (military commissariats, territorial administrations). In composition, they are interdepartmental: chairman - military commissar or head of territorial administration, members - representative of the district (krai or oblast) executive committee at the location of the military commissariat or territorial administration, representative of the corresponding inter-district trade union association, representative of the command by appointment of the commanding officer of the troops (only in commissions at military commissariats), and two physicians (military and civilian), and in the absence of a military physician in the commission at a military commissariat, replacement with a civilian physician is permitted. The duties of conscription commissions at military commissariats include: a) granting exemptions on the basis of family and property status; b) granting deferments from conscription due to illness or physical underdevelopment, as well as complete exemption from compulsory military service due to illness and physical defects; c) granting deferments from conscription for other reasons; d) determining age by external appearance for those being conscripted whose age is not documented; e) medical examination of those being conscripted; f) acceptance of those being conscripted for active military service; g) exemption from compulsory military service on religious grounds on the basis of a court decision; h) enrollment in the territorial militia of persons of conscription age. The duties of conscription commissions at territorial administrations include: a) directing the activities of conscription commissions at military commissariats and supervising their activities; b) considering complaints against the actions of conscription commissions at military commissariats; c) re-examination of those being conscripted in respect of whom the conscription commissions at military commissariats have not made a definite decision on fitness due to disagreement between the majority of commission members and at least one of the physicians participating in the commission; d) re-examination of individual conscripts or entire groups of them in case of doubt about the correctness of decisions of conscription commissions at military commissariats. Decisions of conscription commissions at territorial administrations are final and not subject to appeal. Conscription commissions are permanent bodies, but physicians are included in their composition only during the period of medical examination. Unlike in prerevolutionary times, when physicians in military tribunals conducting conscription were only experts without the right of a decisive vote in resolving the question of the fitness or unfitness of the conscript, at present physicians are full members of the conscription commission. Moreover, in case of disagreement with the opinion of the majority by at least one physician, the conscript is sent for re-examination to the conscription commission at the territorial administration. The duty of physicians is to determine the health status of the conscript through the most thorough examination and to give their opinion on the degree of fitness for military service. The opinion is accompanied by reference to the corresponding article of the current schedule of diseases and physical defects and must be properly motivated to be convincing to the non-medical members of the conscription commission. Physicians are obliged to examine every conscript regardless of his statements about his health, since in individual cases the possibility of simulation cannot be ruled out for the purpose of evading military service, and especially frequently physicians have to deal with so-called dissimulation (see), since among conscripts there is a certain tendency to be accepted into the Red Army. The number of persons examined daily by the conscription commission should not exceed 60. If during examination a disease or defect is found that renders the person unfit for military service, further examination is discontinued. All kinds of certificates, attestations, and even medical records of preliminary examination should not have decisive significance, except in cases specifically provided for in the schedule of diseases and physical defects. In cases where the conscription commission finds it difficult to finally determine the health status of the conscript, it may send him for examination and opinion to a specialist, for additional special examinations (laboratory, X-ray, etc.), or finally for a trial period at a medical institution, and the medical institution is obliged to examine the conscript not only with respect to the complaints of the person sent for trial or the disease indicated by the conscription commission, but also with respect to the general state of health. Upon completion of examination or trial, the specialist physician or medical institution draws up an act in the established form, setting forth the data found during examination and their opinion. This opinion is not binding on the conscription commission but serves only as material in resolving the question of the fitness or unfitness of the person tested for military service. In their opinions on fitness on the basis of health status, the conscription commission is guided by the instructions on medical examination, the guidelines on determining fitness, temporary or permanent unfitness, as well as the schedule of diseases and physical defects, issued by orders of the Revolutionary Military Council of the USSR. The selection of contingents for the Red Army is carried out on a number of grounds (socio-class, technical training, literacy, physical condition), of which the main one is the class criterion. Therefore, physicians, when giving an opinion on the fitness or unfitness of the conscript, must fully correlate the physical criterion with all other grounds on which selection for the Red Army is based. When assessing health status from the point of view of fitness or unfitness for service in the Red Army, one must consider not only the biological value of the conscript but also his socio-class value. Therefore, when assessing the fitness of conscripts who have value from a socio-class point of view (workers, farm laborers, collective farmers, party members, Komsomol members, specialists), an individual approach should be applied, i.e., fitness should be determined not mechanically from the point of view of formal correspondence of a disease or defect to a particular article of the disease schedule, but from the actual possibility of serving in the Red Army. In deciding the question of fitness or unfitness, the decisive significance should not be given to the disease or defect of a particular organ, but to its functional capacity, and if a disease or defect does not affect the function of the organ, the conscript should be considered fit for service in the Red Army, even though formally the disease or defect fully corresponds to the criteria of a particular article of the disease schedule. Having declared the conscript fit for military service, the conscription commission must decide for what branch of service the conscript is best suited, taking into account his social position, physical development, specialty, literacy, party affiliation. In assigning conscripts to branches of service, conscription commissions are guided by special instructions issued by order of the People's Commissar of Military Affairs. From the moment of acceptance by the conscription commission, the conscript is considered to be on active military service. The conscription campaign is of great political importance, the results of which have great significance for the combat effectiveness of the Red Army, and consequently for the defense capability of the country. The powerful technology with which the Red Army is equipped in no way diminishes the combat significance of the living force.

Even more so, powerful technical equipment places higher demands on the quality of reinforcements for the Red Army, since advanced technology can be most effectively used in the hands of soldiers who are class-conscious, technically trained, literate, and physically sufficiently strong. During each conscription, hundreds of thousands of young people are studied in all respects, and first of all in class terms, in order to select from them for the Red Army all the best, all who fully meet the requirements of the Red Army as a class army, an army of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Therefore, each conscription is the business of all Soviet, party, and public organizations, which the party and government are obliged to involve in the most active participation in the conscription campaign. The health authorities, in addition to organizing and conducting preliminary medical examination of those liable for conscription and medical selection during the conscription itself, are responsible for ensuring the necessary sanitary-hygienic conditions. The continuous sanitary interaction between the civilian population and the Red Army is expressed particularly sharply during the period of each conscription, and any unfavorable sanitary conditions among the civilian population can easily be transferred to the Red Army. Therefore, health authorities must develop a carefully thought-out plan for the sanitary provision of the conscription. This plan must mainly provide for: a) timely information to conscription commissions about the epidemiological unfavorable conditions in certain districts; b) organization of sanitary supervision throughout the conscription campaign; c) ensuring proper sanitary-hygienic conditions of assembly points, nutrition, etc.; d) providing appropriate types of assistance for the sick at assembly points; e) organization of medical examination of those sent to the troops; f) organization of sanitary processing of those sent to the Red Army; g) conducting sanitary-educational work among those being conscripted. Transport health authorities are obliged to organize careful sanitary supervision of those accepted into the Red Army en route.