"Effective when fighting in cover."
The wording is deliberate. It does not say "conscripts get a bonus to effectiveness when fighting in cover", that's what the 7th man upgrade is for. No, it says "effective
when fighting in cover". As in, "keep these dudes in cover or they're going to get rocked". This is borne out by the stats: fresh conscripts have a 1.1 target size, where 1 is the "baseline" for infantry. Basically, soviet scientists equipped conscripts with science fiction technology that converts vodka into a magnetic force so strong that even lead cannot escape it.