Another Original LR Translation: Golts on the Russian “Army”

A note from the translator:  One of the problems with Russia is that no contract, social or commercial, is considered binding. Thus deep lawlessness prevails. The consequences may be dire and, given what Russia presents today, I hope they will be. One good step down this path is seeing what happens if you piss off your Armed Forces. Russia’s vlasti (powers-that-be) look like they are setting about it. The voices of freedom should be making major propaganda about this but will probably remain polite little appeasement artists.

Tearing Up the Contract

Aleksandr Golts,

5 May 2009

Yezhedevny  Zhurnal

Translated from the Russian by Dave Essel

Practically any medication can, if one uses it another way, become a poison. It all depends on the dose and how it is used. Defence Minister Anatoly Serdyukov recently issued orders for the extraordinary attestation (i.e. sudden re-testing) of all servicemen. Deputy Defence Minister Nikolai Pankov has reported that re-testing of 85% of the officer corps and 79% of the NCOs has now been completed. The only results so far made public are for the senior officer contingent. Of 250 generals and colonels serving in generals’ posts, 50 have been found to be substandard and will proposed for discharge from the armed forces. One can safely assume that no less than 20% of the remainder will also fail their attestations.

If that is so, then in my view the army top brass will be viewing matters somewhat liberally. It is quite obvious that a considerable proportion of the officer corps – mainly at the major-colonel level – in no way meet the forces’ requirements. Because of a lack of funding in the 1990s, battle training came to an almost complete halt (unless one accepts that that was what was happening in Chechnya). Ships stayed in port, pilots did not exceed 20 flying hours a year (the Soviet norm was 160 hours), and no manoeuvres were held. Officers got their promotions based on time served and not because they had done further training and gained battle experience. As a result, when in recent years there actually was enough money, the commanders who got their stars in the 1990s were incapable of organising real field training. There can be no other explanation for the endless series of catastrophes and accidents we have seen in the army, air force, and navy.

Furthermore, these commanders were incompetent in the field. This is no exaggeration. Here is how Chief of Staff General Makarov put it in a talk at the Academy of Military Science: “[Our] pilots are degrading. During the conflict with Georgia, we could count the number of pilots capable of performing active military tasks in simple situations on the fingers of our hands”. The situation with the ground forces is worse still. “We had to comb the army for lieutenant-colonels, colonels, and generals able and willing to take part in field operations. Because the official commanders of “paper” divisions and regiments were simply not capable of making decisions in the field. When those commanders were given men and equipment, they fell flat on their faces and some even refused to carry out the tasks they were given”.

One can understand that it cannot be easy to find many colonels who can be made to learn what a captain should know. One can understand that the Defence Minister’s plan to make a decisive cut in officers’ numbers – from 305 to 150 thousand – is intended, amongst other things, to rid the forces of those who do not want to learn and those who have been degraded by their enforced idleness. That, anyway, is what Serdyukov’s attestation claims to be about.

This would all look clean and honest if it were not for one important circumstance. When the minister announced the forthcoming reductions six months ago, the Defence Ministry’s top brass emphasised that the cuts would be carried out in strict accordance with the law and regulations. To be fair to them, they were careful not to clarify what laws and what regulations. Bear in mind that one of the laws covers discharge for “organisational” reasons, when the high command decides that is necessary. The main point here is that state makes itself responsible in that event. An officer with 10 years service becomes due a free apartment and a one-off payment of up to 185 thousand roubles. In principle, all 53 thousand officers who at the time of their discharge have still not served the full twenty years needed to get a pension are supposed to leave the service with these benefits.

There is a problem, however: this could cost the state a lot of money. Back when these ideas for reform were first mooted by the ministry, many were surprised at its statement that all this would be done within the existing military budget, with no need for extra assignations. Only recently has Defence Ministry advisor Elena Priyezzheva announced that the 2009-2011 programme for providing benefits to discharged servicemen is likely to cost 113 billion roubles (~$3.5 billion) or about 10% of this year’s defence expenditure.

With the crisis upon us, it became obvious that the funds for this were not there. And then the attestation began. As some knowledgeable people had feared, officers who fail their attestation can be dismissed under another article of the law – for breach of contract. Without a flat and without financial benefits. In the face of such a threat, officers may even agree, for example, to being “voluntarily” discharged, so that while, while they lose their financial benefits, they remain on the waiting list for accommodation, with the hope (somewhat illusory) of a free flat one day.

If this is so, however, the attestation is being made into something other than a proper and lawful procedure by which a government employer check up on its employees’ qualifications. In fact, it is being turned into the opposite of what it is supposed to be, into a cunning way to weasel out of one’s obligations when getting rid of an employee. Much the same scheme is used by the owners of villas outside Moscow: they hire illegal immigrants to do the building work and when the time comes to pay them, these owners phone their tame officials in the immigration service. The police swoop, round up the immigrants, and there’s no one left to pay. Formally – all nice and legal. In actual fact – a rotten disgrace.

If the above is the plan, the the Russian state is intending once again to break its contract with the officer corps. I’m not talking here of the silly bit of paper under which they intend to discharge them. What I am referring to here is the unwritten contract between the state and those who devote their lives to the defence of their country from external enemies. Officers not only agree in advance to submitting to serious restrictions on their rights and freedoms – they are dictated to as to where they will live, what work they will do – but also have to obey the orders of their superiors and more importantly still, have to be ready to fight and die for their country. In order to support the professional soldier in this, special traditions and rituals have been devised over the centuries – medals, uniforms, marching in step (although one far from stupid military man once told me that marching in step was invented to make it harder for individuals to run away). To this should be added a code of honour and a special moral code. Most importantly, however, the state for its part provided its military with a special status and special benefits. It has to be said, though, that the concept of a mass-mobilised army to all intents and purposes ran a line through the whole of this contract. What point is there in establishing a special relationship with the officer corps if, in the case of war, all men with higher education are going to be called up as officers and go into battle. The Soviet and now the Russian system has behaved as it liked towards its officers, sending them to work on collective farms, dumping them in the middle of nowhere, not bothering to pay them for months on end. This then became part of an accepted pattern and the officer corps responded to its Country with universal drunkenness and mass indifference.

And now they’re saying they want to establish a new kind of army. Yet, at the very same time, they are indulging in the same old Soviet tricks. Perhaps a few urgent problems will be solved in this way. But in the end the remaining officers will feel only distrust for the authorities and be totally cynical.

One wonders if the people who have undertaken to reform the armed forces realise this.