Sergey Mikheyev: "The modern army is super open"

Sergey Mikheyev

First, it is necessary to distinguish between the concepts of "bullying" and "barracks hooliganism". "Hazing" is illegal actions of senior military personnel in relation to junior conscription. After the service life was reduced to one year, the ground for bullying began to disappear rapidly. Those who are talking about this now have little idea of what the real "hazing" was once, which at some point really became a serious problem for the Soviet, and then for the Russian army of the 90s, for example.

With "barracks hooliganism" the situation is somewhat different. On the one hand, it has remained, and it is unlikely that it can disappear completely, since we are talking about people, not about robots. And these people are drafted into the army from the streets of our cities and villages, where, as you know, no one can completely eradicate crime. On the other hand, an honest look at this phenomenon cannot fail to notice a radical decrease in the number of such crimes in comparison with previous years. And the Ministry of Defense's intention to suppress this phenomenon also raises no doubts.

First, the army has ceased to be closed. Compared to what it once was, our army is "over-open", there has never been such transparency in its affairs before. Therefore, when they talk about its "closedness", it is not clear with what, in fact, we are comparing? With some other armies? Where is the standard here and is it possible at all? Indeed, even the tasks facing the army in different countries are seriously different. Not to mention objectively different conditions of a different kind. If we compare it with past years and even epochs, then our army has never been more open than now. They say that mobile phones could make the system more transparent, but this thesis is ambiguous: a smartphone can act as an additional incentive for disorder, since many crimes are carried out for show. Servicemen are given phones - which is surprising for me personally - which means that he can report at any time that something has happened to him when he has access to this phone. Everyone in civilian life has telephones, but crime has not disappeared from this. In the army, the main means of combating crimes is the principled directive of the command to maintain discipline and identify any offenses, and not telephones.

Secondly, you need to understand that the army is not a public organization for breeding cactus, it is a structure that guards security. The army is a regime organization. Everything that is inside, to one degree or another, represents a secret, therefore a certain degree of closeness has been, is and will always be, and this is correct. If we make an entrance yard out of the army so that everyone would come there like to a zoo, or if we broadcast online from each barracks to the Internet, then the army will cease to fulfill its function and simply will not be able to defend the country. Then what's the point in this army? Better to give up right away. A golden mean is needed, and there is an impression that the Ministry of Defense is striving for it. In addition, the military structure exists on budget funds. It must be understood that if you spend budgetary funds on the army, and at the same time make the structure ineffective in various ways, you harm those people who pay taxes. You deprive them of their safety, and at the same time contribute to the waste of money.

Thirdly, the attitude of the officers has changed, and those who served in the army know this very well. Previously, the command of the commanders was: "Do not wash dirty linen in public." Therefore, all kinds of such cases were simply hidden, they were not allowed to go outside. And this, by the way, stimulated hazing, hooliganism and all sorts of crimes. Now the situation is the opposite: everything is aimed at ensuring that hooliganism is given maximum publicity, and this is the task of the commander. With the same Ramil Shamsutdinov (and this is just one such incident in several years), everything turned out as openly as possible.

For example, in the Soviet army, dozens of crimes with fatal outcomes or grievous bodily harm happened every year, just no one knew about them. They were either simply hidden or classified as accidents. I myself witnessed such tragedies when I was doing military service in the SA. And now, once a year or once every few years, something similar happens, and everyone knows and talks about it. This is an indicator that such crimes have decreased by an order of magnitude, and the availability of information is much greater. The requirement of the complete absence of any incidents is either stupidity (because this is a utopia) or a provocation.

Increased attention to cases like the Shamsutdinov case is being drawn for obvious reasons. But the goals of those who do it are different. First of all, the parents of conscripts are worried. And this is natural. They are very worried about their sons, who were drafted into the army. Although there is too much. Some mothers, for example, would never let their sons go anywhere from their skirts. Then women ask: "Where did the real men go?" These people sincerely do not understand the problem of bullying, they are afraid and nervous. It's another matter that their fears, quite understandable, are used by certain political forces that are interested in fanning any scandals. The more scandals, the greater the feeling of irritation, discontent, and this can be used for political purposes to destabilize the situation in the country. The situation is also known for other topics - for someone, "the worse the better".

Moreover, internal provocateurs, willingly or unwittingly, but in fact, are playing into the hands of quite real external enemies. After all, all sorts of scum very quickly, using the legitimate anxiety of society, build a bridge to calls to completely abandon the defense of their country, disarm and “give money to children and pensioners”. As the saying goes, "if they would surrender Leningrad, they would drink Bavarian". And this must be clearly understood.

Therefore, both Kartapolov's speech and, in general, the actions of the Ministry of Defense to suppress offenses in the army should be recognized as fully justified. And to those who really care, we can advise, on the contrary, to support our military in this matter, and not to join the stupid or dastardly attacks on the army. Including for the sake of their children.