Soviet Military-Civilian Interview Project, 1983-1987

The Military-Civilian Interview Project interviewed male former Soviet citizens currently residing in the United States about their military and civilian workplace experiences. Respondents were asked to comment on whether plans to emigrate changed their lives significantly and if so, to specify the ways in which their lives changed. Other areas of investigation included civilian and military morale, service avoidance, and how factors such as nationality composition of the work force and initiative shown by the respondent related to performance in the military and civilian sectors. Questions relating to the military dealt with areas such as branch of service, combat experience, quality and type of equipment utilized, extent of training for military service, specific job assignments, working relationships between ethnic groups, instances and methods of military discipline, and relationship between supervisors. Parallel questions were asked about civilian work experiences. A series of questions concerning what lessons the United States could learn from the Soviet military was also asked. Demographic information elicited included age, languages spoken (other than Russian), political party affiliation, education, time frame of emigration, father's social group and military service, and city of residence at age 17.