can bunch of slaves produce
courage ? , answer is no, that's why the Persians didn´t have a chance against the Greeks, Muscovite armies (hordes) always have been bunch of meatballs , and yes, it has worked for them time to time, and you know why it doesn´t work for them today ? check out Muscovite demography year
2017 
Really? That's your reply?
Here's a clue, guy - I spent twenty years in the military, and while I am (thankfully) not a combat vet, I do know that when the s**t hits the fan and lives are at stake, you're doing fighting or trying to save lives because of the flag, or because of country, or because you love the president...you're doing it because of your buddies, to protect them, to do what you've gotta do in order to keep you and yours alive...and the closer you are to the rest of your unit, the more you'll stand (or crawl) beside them when the bullets start flying, and the more you'll risk your life even against certain death to save them. That's not a matter of social status, but of simple human nature. Many fail the test...and many don't.
So YES, slaves can have as much courage as anyone else, absolutely they can! Ask the Janissaries and the Marmalukes! The difference, however, comes to the nature of the slavery...because if one is a slave from birth to death, who will always be legally owned by someone who literally has the power of life and death over that slave, then that slave is a heck of a lot less likely to risk his life for his owner...but this was not the case with pre-communism Russia. Why? While the people were in a largely feudal system, they were not treated as slaves were in our antebellum Deep South - the two systems were apples and oranges indeed. The Russian peasant, for all his grinding poverty, was still
Russian, and all those around him were no more and no less Russian than he himself was. This kind of shared identity makes a huge difference. In contrast, during slavery in America, the slaves did not - indeed,
could not - truly feel themselves to be American (much less Confederate, since yes, the war was about preserving slavery).
The Russians fought courageously as long as they could, and when they had no other choice, yes, they surrendered, often in great numbers. BUT that was when they had no other choice, when they had no ammo, food, and/or water, and they were surrounded...but every time, they did not reach that point because of any lack of courage of the individual soldier, but of the quality (or lack thereof) of the commander...or (even more often) a matter of abysmal logistics capability (as was almost always the case in WWI).
Do not make the mistake of underestimating your opponent, for such is the root cause of almost every great upset defeat in history. You mentioned the Mongols - every one of their opponents underestimated the Mongols...until the Mongols proved themselves and became feared from modern-day Poland to Korea. We badly underestimated the Japanese until they bloodied our noses at Pearl Harbor. Worst of all, we underestimated the Vietnamese, and they sacrificed at least two million of their people to our 55K dead to get us to leave. Think on that for a moment - they lost nearly 40 for every one of ours, and yet they still effectively won. And then go back to Russia, and you see the same thing - the shared courage of those in common cause. They might lose - as the Russians did several times - but accusing their soldiers of a lack of courage evinces a real lack of understanding of how and why they lost.
