31 
youth become sailors, they are exposed to long training cruises 
designed to give them sea legs and an at-home feeling on the oceans." 
Equally important, the Soviet regime feels the need to combat the 
worry and homesickness that develops in young sailors when they 
are far from native shores. '* 
Then, too, by expanding their ambitions to the oceans, the Soviet 
leaders have heightened a political delimma. In general, they have 
always been nervous about any contact between their people and 
foreigners. This applies even more to activities that call for Soviet 
personnel to range beyond U.S.S.R.’s borders. The concern has been 
fed by numerous and continuing defections which have occurred in 
the post-World War II period. 
In particular, the Soviet regime has been most wary about one 
of the most important groups in the Soviet system—its military. As 
a result of their experience abroad, the armed forces in some instances 
have become ideologically “contaminated” and have even provided 
the seeds of dissidence. 
The regime’s concern about the military stems from recent ex- 
perience. In the final stages of World War II, the Soviet troops ad- 
vanced into East Europe and were exposed to local economic condi- 
tions; as poor as these conditions were in comparison with those 
in West Europe or the United States, they were superior to those 
in the Soviet Union and accordingly affected the attitude of Soviet 
personnel. For example, Soviet soldiers, many of whom came from 
rural parts of the Soviet Union and were of peasant stock, saw first 
hand that even the poorest peasants in Poland or Hungary were in 
many ways better off than the richest kolkhoznik. Because they made 
unfavorable comparisons, these soldiers were not allowed to return 
directly or promptly to their homes at the end of the war. Instead 
they were first “decontaminated” by being sent elsewhere. 
Because of this wartime experience, the Soviet leaders after the 
war isolated their forces abroad, e.g., in East Germany, Hungary, 
and Poland, in their barracks and did not allow them to have the 
free interchange that existed between American soldiers overseas and 
the local population. 
The foregoing examples illustrate the source of Soviet regime’s dis- 
trust of its citizens, whether in uniform or in civilian capacity. These 
indications of the regime’s insecurity vis-a-vis the loyalty of its people 
evoke, in turn, a negative reaction from the Soviet people up to 
and including dissidence. The latter is most telling once again in 
the case of the Soviet Armed Forces. With their exposure to foreign 
influence, the latter have sparked active opposition. This is most ap- 
plicable to the forces based in the Leningrad area. In recent years, 
the Baltic fleet has produced a number of dissenters, particularly 
from the ranks of the submarine officers who are the cream of an 
already elite group that makes up the Soviet Navy. 
It should be noted parenthetically that recent dissent in the Baltic 
fleet draws on past history, both in the Soviet and the Tsarist context: 
"Soviet publications note that the training of Soviet naval personnel must concern itself with such 
minute details as to how to avoid or cope with seasickness. A detailed discussion of such training is 
contained in “Voina, Okean, Chelovek” (War, Ocean, Man), Voenizdat, Moscow, 1974. 
Ibid., p. 107. 
