Russian Reserve Officer Training system is intended for training commissioned officers from among students of Russian civilian institutions of higher education.
History
In Soviet era
Reserve Officer Training in Soviet Union was established in 1927. According to the Soviet Union Law about compulsory military service of 13 August 1930 №42/253б, this training was known as higher non-inside-military-unit training, and a list of civilian universities conducting this training was approved by People's Commissariat for Military and Naval Affairs. The first list existed in 1927.
Initially, the officer, responsible for conducting the higher non-inside-military-unit training in civilian university, was named "military head" (). The first congress of these military heads was held in 1927. The term "military department" () appeared later, when Council of People's Commissars of the Soviet Union Decree of 13 April 1944 №413 was promulgated.
With the enactment of the Soviet Union Law about universal military duty of 12 October 1967 №1950-VII, reserve officer training conducting by military departments of civilian higher education institutions became mandatory for all able-bodied male students (and all able-bodied female medical students) of institutions that had such departments.
According to Lt. Col. F. Edward Jones, an American military analyst with the U.S. Army War College who studied Soviet reserve military forces, not all men served on active duty with the Soviet Armed Forces. All students, who were enrolled in a reserve officer training program while in university were exempt from conscript service. Some of them, particularly those in engineering fields, were later called to active duty as reserve officers for periods ranging from two to three years.
Thus there was a system of selective conscription of graduates of military departments within civilian institutions of higher education (universities, academies and, strictly speaking, institutions) in USSR. Such person could be conscripted to active duty, but until the certain age. At the end of the period of active duty he was due to be enlisted in the reserve of armed forces again. Such officers were called "blazers" in army's slang (for example, Anatoly Kvashnin was a "blazer").
There was a particular goal in cross-training civil specialists. In the classless society of the Soviet Union every individual was guaranteed a job. In so doing, those individuals that have a job have a dual function. Truck drivers for example, worked for whatever organization their job is associated with; they could be drivers who shuttle machine parts from their factory in Kiev to outlying areas, but they were also registered with the local civilian transport enterprise (Avtokolonna) who receive requirements from the local Military commissariat (Voenkomat) for a designated number of trucks for mobilization or a particular military exercise.
As these drivers are well trained and are driving a truck that they have driven many times before (civilian trucks are identical to the military version – one could do a one-for-one exchange and not suffer any decrement of the mission) the system works out very well. The commanders who are receiving these drivers with their trucks, know exactly how many vehicles they will receive, where they're coming from, their license numbers, and the driver's name. The same is applicable for the rest of the civil specialties, such as medics, mechanics, radio operators, telegraph operators or even jewelers, as well as many others.
In 1960-70's, the number of universities with military departments was increased to 497, the annual number of graduates was about 170.000, approximately 30% of which drafted into active duty. The number of civilian institutions of higher education which had military departments was decreased to 397 by 1990.
Soviet military education was aimed at training of officer-specialists in narrowly-defined military occupational specialties, and it differed greatly from American military education system in which newly-qualified second lieutenants receive particular specialties in the framework of their "career branch" only after graduation from military academy or ROTC. Students of Soviet civilian universities having military departments could not choose a military occupational specialty because each civilian specialty taught by the university was attached to particular military occupational specialty taught by a military department of the same university by the rector's order.