How are the mighty fallen-(Russian Military Tolstoy “Conscription,” “was like death.”

economist ^ | 6/30/05 | na

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How are the mighty fallen Jun 30th 2005 | BALTISK AND MOSCOW From The Economist print edition

Eyevine Eyevine

Russian conscription is one of Europe's worst human-rights scandals. But the system is too lucrative for the top brass to scrap it

AFTER he was conscripted last autumn, says Peter, an 18-year-old from Korolyov, he was frequently forced by his older comrades to climb through a hole in the fence at his base and beg for cash in a local town. There were beatings with stools and belt buckles, burnings with a cigarette lighter, and he was forced to give blood every two weeks to bring in a few more roubles. In the end, he ran away.

“You know what graffiti I wrote on the fence the other day?” Dmitri Oparin, a conscript from Chelyabinsk, wrote to his family during his service in the Moscow region. “Let me out of here.” With his twin brother Alexander, Dmitri was drafted in June 2003. After an especially brutal beating by a sergeant, the brothers deserted last November. They killed two policemen and Alexander died during a siege. Dmitri has been diagnosed with schizophrenia.

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“Conscription,” Tolstoy wrote of the mid-19th century Russian army, “was like death.” Things may have improved a bit for the 350,000-odd young Russians now drafted in two batches each year. But scarcely a week passes without a case of conscripts being murdered, killing themselves, freezing to death, or deserting and sometimes going on violent rampages. According to official figures, the armed forces suffer roughly 1,000 non-combat deaths every year. Military prosecutors uncovered 46 in just one week in June.

This being Russia, that revelation, like prosecutors' other remarks about theft and embezzlement among officers, was seen as a bid to undermine Sergei Ivanov, the defence minister, who is tipped as a possible successor to President Vladimir Putin. Mr Ivanov has promised more transparency over military deaths—a departure from his usual line, which is to insist that military depravity is declining. The normal justifications are that crime and suicide are national problems (“the army is a copy of society and suffers from all its diseases,” wrote Trotsky, “usually at a higher temperature”); and that other countries' armed forces suffer from them too.

Or that the problems do not exist at all. Vladimir Valuyev, admiral of Russia's Baltic Fleet, based at Baltisk in the Kaliningrad region, says that 12 sailors who deserted in April after alleged abuse simply did not want to go to sea. “We turn out real men,” says the admiral angrily. On board his ageing flagship, which has shapes of NATO planes stencilled on its deck, many conscripts say—at least when their officers are listening—that they plan to stay on after their mandatory terms.

However much it is still cited by runaway draftees, dedovshchina (rule of the grandfathers) is said by the defence ministry to be waning. Dividing conscripts into categories according to their length of service, this system of persecution evolved in Soviet times but has become more brutal over the past two decades. Younger conscripts who refuse its serf-like obligations, including begging and stealing, risk horrific, occasionally lethal punishment, which absent, callous or corrupt officers fail to prevent.

Dropping conscription altogether is still not in prospect

Russia's top brass has long talked of shifting the balance between conscripts and contract troops in the 1.2m-strong armed forces. In 2008 the conscription term is due to be cut from two years to one; by the end of 2008, 70% of all troops are meant to be volunteers. A planned professional corps of non-commissioned officers might even tackle dedovshchina. At the barracks of the Tamansk division outside Moscow, which is evolving into an all-volunteer unit, privates say that conditions are much better than elsewhere: they sleep ten to a room, rather than 100. Officers say that contract soldiers are more interested in their pay than in bullying.

But dropping conscription altogether is still not in prospect. Colonel-General Anatoly Mazurkevich argues that if Russia's armed forces—now less than half their size at the collapse of the Soviet Union—shrink any more, they will be unable to defend the country's territory. A counter-argument is that these unreformed armed forces could never repel a serious invasion anyway. “If you've got 1.2m men who've got the wrong kit and can't be deployed,” says one western liaison officer, “the situation is not much better than when the Germans came.” Russia's nuclear weapons are its only real defence against strategic threats. It would be better to make the army lean and nimble enough to tackle local insurgencies and terrorism.

The other rationale is that conscripts, at a few dollars a month, are so cheap. (A smaller army would also, of course, need fewer senior officers). But another powerful reason is that the system is highly lucrative for some. Young men unfortunate enough to be drafted provide illicit forced labour; those canny or rich enough to escape the draft can be more profitable still. Only a small minority of 18-27-year-olds (9%, says the defence ministry, though this is disputed) actually serve their two years. The rest are exempted on medical grounds, or receive educational deferments which bring huge bribes for doctors and universities. Ilya, from Moscow, paid $2,000 for an exemption to a recruiter, who never gave him the certificate. Ilya's conclusion? Better to have paid $400 to a doctor. “This is life,” comments General Mazurkevich.

This shameless travesty has huge costs. Conscripts are generally poor, ill-educated, and sometimes already alcoholic and malnourished. Valentina Melnikova, of the Committee of Soldiers' Mothers, which wants conscription scrapped, says that it takes 18 months to recover from military service, even without being sent to Chechnya. (Officially, the army no longer uses conscripts in Chechnya, but some claim to have been sent there anyway. “Young boys are just dying for assholes that make money on it,” says one.) Then there are the costs to the country: a warped education system and disrupted labour market, among others. There may yet be political costs for Mr Putin too.

Russian generals have always relied on two strategic superfluities: lots of land and enough people to compensate for the poverty of their equipment, training and feeding. But Russia's rapidly shrinking population, combined with draft-dodging, is threatening the old calculus. Government talk of abolishing student deferments to bring in more and better-quality conscripts subsided after big protests over social reforms in January. Another idea being mooted to achieve the same goal is to cut the number of universities that offer military training alongside their normal academic courses. But if anything could alienate ordinary Russians from Mr Putin's still popular regime, the prospect of tens of thousands of their sons being called up just might be it.

[Arthur Wildfire! March]

A draft creates a totalitarian structure. It's a great example of why socializm fails. Drafts only 'work' for a number of years, and even then, you are training, feeding, and equipping a bunch of young men against their will. Sadists can thrive in such a situation.

[GarySpFc]

Ping

[Destro]

See Vietnam - fragging.

[Arthur Wildfire! March]

Good point. But note that US citizens are much more willing to kill than people in most countries. I'd heard someone who griped about all the violence in the US. He said that lethal intent of US soldiers is 85%. In most countries, it's 25% [our's was also 25% back at the start of WWII]. He thought that was bad. I think it's good.