ABSTRACT
With the exception of the Communist Party, no institution suffered more from the dissolution of the USSR than the Soviet armed forces. No other institution in the Soviet Union - with the sole exception of the Communist Party - was more feted or idolized. To a considerable degree, the Soviet state and peoples existed to feed the armed forces, which were portrayed as a guarantor not only of Soviet independence, but also of the Bolshevik Revolution and socialism. For Moscow, the scale of the Soviet armed forces also guaranteed its domination of the Russian empire's former territories such as Ukraine, central Asia and the Caucasus, while national service reinforced the values of the Soviet regime among disparate ethnic groups, some of whom spoke little Russian, and encouraged talented young men from all backgrounds to serve the state. The army, in tandem with the party, was the Soviet Union.
