‘A Great Profession’

This chapter focuses on one of the ‘problem groups' among veterans: the disabled. They were in a paradoxical position. On the one hand, they were the only subgroup of veterans with a continued legal status in postwar society. However, welfare policies were constructed with the intention to put as many of the ‘Invalids of the Patriotic War’ to work as possible and welfare institutions were underdeveloped and severely dysfunctional. As a result, many disabled veterans became marginalized in postwar society. The continuing symbolic affirmation of their special status combined with this...

This chapter focuses on one of the ‘problem groups' among veterans: the disabled. They were in a paradoxical position. On the one hand, they were the only subgroup of veterans with a continued legal status in postwar society. However, welfare policies were constructed with the intention to put as many of the ‘Invalids of the Patriotic War’ to work as possible and welfare institutions were underdeveloped and severely dysfunctional. As a result, many disabled veterans became marginalized in postwar society. The continuing symbolic affirmation of their special status combined with this experience of neglect to produce severe resentment, which would fuel much of the beginning veterans' movement in the 1950s and 1960.