Кеңес Одағы тарихындағы Еңбек армиясы тұжырымы

the notion of the labor army in the history of the Soviet Union

The notion of the Labor army (трудовая армия, трудармия) was introduced in Soviet Russia during the Russian Civil War in 1920. Initially the term was applied to regiments of Red Army transferred from military activity to labor activity, such as logging, coal mining, firewood stocking, etc.

The first labor army (1я Трудармия, 1 я армия труда) was created after the defeat of Kolchak on the base of the 3rd Army located in the Urals region by the initiative of the army commander Mikhail Matiyasevich (командарм Михаил Степанович Матиясевич). Leon Trotsky, acting as People's Commissar of Army and Fleet Affairs and Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic at this time, developed this idea further. He argued that the economic situation in the country required introduction of the universal labor duty. In the case of workers, this could be done with the help of trade unions, while in the case of peasantry, Trotsky argued, it was possible only through mobilization. He argued further that "army type organization is in fact inherently Soviet type of organization".

In Nazi Germany, the Reich Labour Service was established to help mitigate the effects of unemployment on the German economy, militarise the workforce and indoctrinate it with Nazi ideology. It was the official state labour service, divided into separate sections for men and women.

During World War II certain categories of population, primarily ethnic Germans, were conscripted into NKVD labor columns, in later literature informally referred to as "labor army". Until the last days of the Soviet Union, the Soviet Army incorporated the idea of the labor army. With obligatory military duty in the state, men deemed unfit for regular military duty but not unfit for other work, as well as many able bodied ones, were assigned to construction battalions (стройбаты). This tradition continues in a number of post Soviet states, notably Russia, Belarus and Turkmenistan.