A crippled society: The homecoming of Russian invalids of World War I, 1914-1929

Permanently disabled, a fighter left the war, except for those detained in camps. But after the fight had ceased, the veteran still felt its burn and lived in this memory among men and women that the war effort made insensitive. Invalids came back unable to fight and to provide for themselves. This fact displeased civil authorities in charge of their rehabilitation, military authorities intending to mobilize new recruits and pretending to the final victory, and families forced to bear such a financial and psychological burden with so little official assistance. Invalids took sometimes part in charity events, but these hardly impeded a process of marginalization, and the minimal profits did not compensate for a non-voluntary sacrifice that veterans considered unfair. It explains why invalids actively participated in the democratic outburst of 1917. But the learning of politics and collective action quickly stopped when civil war began and disabled veterans scattered. Under the New Economic Policy, an all-RSFSR union fought for invalids' rights, but ultimately failed to obtain the distinction of war invalidity from civil disability. Moreover, Bolsheviks rewarded former Red Army soldiers better and longer than Great War's veterans.