Over the past three years, at least 60,000 officers under the age of 30 have voluntarily left the Russian Armed Forces. In fact, we lost several selected officer divisions...

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Victims of departmental abuse

Russia at the end of the millennium is probably weaker than ever. But outwardly the country resembles a besieged camp. And how to perceive otherwise, if in the center of the capital patrols are walking around with submachine guns under their arms and famously shifted berets? It's not very valiant to chase down shopkeepers and old ladies. Everywhere you look, there are people in spotted uniforms. OMON, police, customs officers, security guards of everything and everything...

Today, the statistics are as follows: only one - third of those put under arms report to the Ministry of Defense, the remaining two-thirds-to other law enforcement agencies. Our young people serve in more than twenty independent organizations. Moreover, the parents of conscripts try to attach the boys anywhere, but not in the barracks army, where the regiments drag out a miserable existence and frighten the people with the sight of half-starved soldiers. Well-fed security guards look much more respectable.

When did the destruction of the Armed Forces begin? Who contributed the most to this? These are not easy questions.

I remember the enthusiasm that prevailed in the fall of 1991 in connection with the unofficially announced recruitment to the Russian National Guard. The temporary headquarters was located in one of the alleys leading to Red Square. There was no sign, but the address was unmistakable from the crowd of young men in and out of uniform. Crammed into cramped rooms, lieutenants, captains, and majors, reserve and active, filled out questionnaires. What prompted them to enlist in the new Guard? The responses were surprisingly unanimous, with people starved for combat. I also thought: how many young officers are fed up with the routine way in which there are rare trips to the landfill, but endless household work and all sorts of construction "haposobom", regular landings on potatoes and marches of virgin battalions...

The failed guard turned out to be, perhaps, the first swallow that announced the readiness of the army " eagles "to leave their native" nest " and fly away. In various "camouflage" neoplasms, the masters of combat qualification who escaped from the infamous "service"found shelter.

It's a thankless task to paint a picture of how the Armed Forces were torn apart. It takes a long time to tell who has branched off from what root and how much it has grown and strengthened. It is bitter to see one thing: no one wants to self-destruct, cut down the branches under them - let Russia fall like a thousand-year-old oak. Gradually, many pseudo-army structures acquired an increasingly impressive and formidable appearance. They acquired a solid management apparatus, pocket troops, and special forces.

Herzen and Ogarev have long ridiculed the passion of purely civilian departments to settle down in a military way and thereby, as it were, ennoble themselves. It is painfully recognizable one of the ineradicable phenomena of Russia, called "poetry of chancery" by friends-accusers. Viewed as if yesterday: "Outposts were set up on Moskovskoye Highway and each outpost was given an office. For offices in Russian sizes, top managers, officials, clerks, a team, and a spacious room are needed. What happened? On the salary and maintenance of highway clerks with their expenses went all the fees from the highway, for the support of which it was necessary to allocate a special amount " ("Voices from Russia", London. Volnaya russkaya knigopechatnaya, 1856).

When we are always penniless, we are surprisingly extravagant. Isn't it blasphemous: on the ruins of the army (the eternal stronghold of the state), militarized departments that claim to be institutions of great national importance have been soundly rebuilt?

The history of departmental battles is not only long - it continues. Unfortunately, the army's competitors do not compete in love of the Fatherland. They try to enlist the support of those in power and money, to prove who is most needed in the world. They try to snatch a fatter piece from the common cauldron. They fight among themselves for conscription contingents, for benefits and privileges, for indulgences and subsidies, for the right to be closest to his presidential Majesty, for seniority in the regions. For example, in the Kaliningrad Special District, the former director of the Federal Border Service, General A. Nikolaev, is remembered with an unkind word. He demanded the reassignment of all the naval, land and air forces stationed in this enclave, and pulled the "military blanket"over himself.

- Sometimes you think: is there a limit to your ambition? "I heard it from an officer I know from the General Staff. - Border guards are opening their own flight school. What do they have, different helicopters? They open their own medical institute. What, soldiers in green caps need to be treated in a special way? The Ministry of Emergency Situations considers it beneath its dignity to train its personnel on the basis of the engineering Academy - give them a university that personally belongs to the Ministry! Five higher education institutions of the Ministry of Internal Affairs train in the same military accounting specialties as the Land Forces schools. No one cares about economic feasibility. Above all, strengthening one's own position, even at the expense of weakening the state.

Why such a passion for "independence", the desire to defend narrowly departmental interests to the detriment of the state? Or have we run out of statesmen? Why do we allow private shops to flourish amid the general devastation? It is not without reason that a modern poet exclaimed with pain: "There are only "roofs" around, and the roof of the Motherland flows!"

The victim is obvious - the country itself, with its shattered defense to the extreme. Does something bad always happen again? At the beginning of the century, the naval officer and writer M. Menshikov rang all the bells: "They want to make the military army from all sides civilian, that is, in the style of the time - perhaps less state, perhaps less national."

An ominous paradox: in the event of a dangerous development of events, units of all law enforcement agencies are trained with the exception of... defense companies. For some reason, it is not considered overhead to maintain fully equipped teams of the Ministry of Emergency Situations. Their personnel, including those wearing the uniform of the airborne troops, are fully supplied and fed, and are trained in combat. And the same treasury for some reason is not able to fork out for the tolerable existence of motorized rifle brigades, which are ungodly disbanded. And if a skirmish starts in the Caucasus, the special services and OMON will again allow the assembled army envoys to pass without waiting in line ahead - to hell - hastily - to death. Those untrained boys in Grozny also suffered bloodily from departmental abuse. Another fact to think about. Three thousand Moscow policemen blew dust from the Rolling Stones ' rock idols. And there is no one to shield from the powder squalls the population that has the misfortune to live near Chechnya.

Many" camouflage " budget structures would do well to demilitarize as soon as possible and become what they are supposed to be - ordinary state institutions to ensure a prosperous life for citizens. This also applies directly to the Ministry of Emergency Situations, a unique department that does not exist anywhere in the world except in Russia. Its brigades can be usefully transferred to the Ground Forces. So we will return the lost (or stolen?)items. connections. At the same time, we will solve the problem with uniforms. Purely lifeguards are more suited to orange suits, without shoulder straps. Military units are no stranger to dealing with natural disasters. Let them train, in addition to winning the sympathy of the population!

In the book "The Future under President Reagan" (Moscow, Progress Publishing House, 1981), which is outdated for the United States and topical for us, I came across a merciless verdict on the civil and military establishment. "Our capital has become an arena where gladiators representing the interests of various groups in America cut each other's throats for crumbs from the table of the federal authorities." This is followed by instructive conclusions: "Society is divided and confused instead of acting together and purposefully... Intellectual capital is diverted from its optimal use due to the fact that it is employed in various tax and regulatory bodies established by the state... Creeping poverty and the squandering of human resources pose a greater economic and spiritual threat than a temporarily unbalanced budget."

Isn't the same way - because of the tragic waste of human resources-the native land is also weakening? Doesn't Russia need heroic power? It is inexcusable that the main military organization of the country should be torn apart into autonomous, independent forces that are unproductively spent. It's time to finally put an end to appanage and start cementing the Armed Forces. And to do this as thoroughly as once collecting Russian lands.

"Do we really need trouble to become stronger?"

Russian statistics give terrible figures. Every year, men die from poisoning with substandard vodka in an amount equal to several divisions. In a year, up to half a thousand officers end their lives out of desperation. A whole suicide battalion of officers, which under other circumstances might have been an immortal garrison!

A unit in which officers are killed is considered out of action, no matter how many soldiers are left in it. After all, the main thing is the personnel core, and quantitative replenishment will not be necessary. And what kind of loss can be attributed to a dead battalion, and several divisions of officers who voluntarily removed their shoulder straps? We've wasted an entire wartime combined-arms state army. This is half of the Soviet troops massed near Stalingrad at the beginning of the famous battle. When huge losses are not justified by anything, it is necessary to urgently change the strategy and tactics. Otherwise, the result is predictable and deplorable.

...These are inglorious times. Everything turned upside down in our minds: it is more authoritative to be a defender of a bank or office than a guardian of the Fatherland. Loyalty to the native department is valued more than patriotism.

The scale of life values has changed. The hierarchy of civil servants and government employees has changed. As a result, the military and the police are almost hostile to each other. The army and internal troops no longer feel like a single fortress of their native Home. And earlier, the position in the eyes of society was still determined by the measure of debt. And here the absolute leadership was recognized for the representatives of the Armed Forces, who carry out the most difficult service to protect state honor. Now they are not elevated by the degree of responsibility. Those who regularly receive a salary and can boast of a profitable place look at others with superiority.

I know a case when some "cool" new Russian in a jeep cursed a whole line of students at the Frunze Academy: you see, the officer's " box " prevented him from passing. Even at the beginning of the century, an impudent person would have been immediately cut down with a saber.

"Now try to punch me in the face in response to the insult," Major General Yu, the head of the academy's command department, told me indignantly. Bogdanov. - The police are given unlimited rights. Imagine: an officer was hit with a baton! They emptied his pockets. And they warned us: if you make a fuss , we'll write that you resisted, and they'll put you in jail. How could this have happened under the tsar, Stalin, or Brezhnev? Never! And the officers are holy men! How worried they are about the state! They will be the first to die for it without hesitation! I wore shoulder straps in ' 54. What did it have to do with the military? No money was taken from the soldier - a welcome guest is everywhere..."

President Boris Yeltsin promised the kids that when I was young, we were jealous of a man in uniform, and you will be. But first, it is necessary that by it is meant unambiguously a military person. And then after all, there are so many of them having fun - in army ranks and camouflage. Perhaps no other era has known greater profanation and devaluation of military rank and field uniforms. Combat equipment, as well as all the best, sound and worthy, should go to "for the power of the defendants". So that their holy mission, their prosperity, is envied by the bodyguard, the bank guard, and the plenipotentiary of any pseudo-army service - security, customs, rescue, tax, convoy, etc., etc., it is appropriate to recall the words of the publicist M. Menshikov, who was shot by a Bolshevik court in 1918: "All governments, except perhaps they are very stupid, they understand the extreme height of an officer's duty and try to maintain the consciousness of this height among the people... But the Government cannot do everything in this regard. Of course, it is necessary that the officers themselves try to protect the respectful attitude of society towards them."

At all times, they thought about how to strengthen the authority of the armed defender. "The goal is fully achieved when the predominance of bureaucracy in the military department ends, when the structure and education of our army becomes exclusively combat - oriented," R. Fadeev, a well-known army theorist and practitioner, believed more than a hundred years ago. He died in 1883, leaving a fortune of " 3 rubles... and a shabby uniform" - that's what the generals were once like! In short, the recipes are as old as the army itself. However, they are criminally rejected. Contrary to common sense, we eliminate the most efficient units, dismiss battle-hardened officers, and instead call up unsophisticated reserve officers.

We can count the regiments on our fingers. Instead, there are tens of thousands of colonels who have never even commanded departments and hold positions "that do not even represent a shadow of a military purpose." The time has come to do everything possible to turn the army of chief executives into an army of combat professionals.

In my opinion, it would not hurt to raise the bar of requirements for the available composition and at the same time reduce the modern "table of ranks" - by at least three steps. The plentiful "starfall" during the period of quantitative reduction of troops is absurd. To ensure that shoulder straps do not become cheaper, it is important to achieve the intrinsic value of each military rank. To make it clear to everyone: a lieutenant is yesterday's best soldier, and any general is a seasoned Soldier. You see, the average person will get used to looking at shoulder straps with respect-when these shoulder straps are not on just anyone. When the rank of officer will be raised by themselves to a height unattainable for an ordinary citizen.

It is easy to wish, harder to fulfill. Especially in the atmosphere, when around the preference is given to "service to oneself", in the words of I. S. Turgenev. It is sad to learn: very often "real colonels", baptized with fire, who graduated from command universities, arrange their sons as lawyers and financiers. Contrary to the saying "a soldier will give birth to a soldier", tankers are preparing to replace clerks.

That's all you hear: "I would like to live normally for myself." They say that ascetics and selfless personalities will be found without us. And that's another question. Their own well-being is unstable in a weakened country, open to all adversities. You can indulge yourself in fantasies. But there is a cruel story about a dead battalion and heroes going ...into business.

Why is our society not appalled by the material and spiritual devastation of the Armed Forces? Where is even the instinct of self-preservation? Do you really have to suffer to death again to sing differently? Before a thunderstorm breaks out, the entire Russian world must take up the creation of the once beloved army, flesh from the flesh of the people.

And in the West, they gloat: "The Russians hardly have a single combat-ready division left." And at the same time they are still surprised: "NATO responded to the sharp weakening of Russia's power and its moderate imperial ambitions by expanding and approaching it" (Newsweek, New York, August 1998). But the truth expressed by the tsarist General R. Fadeev is not outdated at all: "Russia lives only because it cannot be prevented from living, because it is strong enough to fight back... For us, the question of power is a question of life, and we must not sleep in peace until we are sure that we have sufficient power against all chance... We need to be strong not for the next century, but for tomorrow."

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