Russian military patriotic education: a control tool against the arbitrariness of veterans

Abstract

The military had been concerned about military patriotic education for a long time when Putin's Patriotic Education Programme was published. As soon as the collapse of the Soviet Union occurred, followed a few years later by the creation of the Russian armed forces, they had already been developing patriotic education programmes aimed primarily at youth, aided by veterans of local wars, both volunteers and recruits. The aim of this article is to show that the military version of patriotic education aims openly to encourage military service, and that the Russian state will try to enlist veterans of the Afghanistan and Chechen wars in activities linked to military patriotic education and its spread in military and civilian spheres. Our hypothesis is that the determination to bring veterans together around a common project has two aims: (1) to federate veterans around the authorities and (2) to channel a population that escapes government control and some of whose excesses on their return to civilian life (violence towards the population in the context of their function, for veterans of the Interior Ministry in particular) have darkened the image of the ministries known as the “power” ministries.

Keywords:

• military patriotic education
• veterans
• youth

Acknowledgements

This article was made possible as the result of a travel grant awarded by the Moscow Franco-Russian Centre for Human and Social Sciences (USR 3060 CNRS – MAE), <http://www.centre-fr.net/>, in October 2008. The author is grateful to the two anonymous referees for their useful comments.

Notes

As soon as it was created, the Rosvoentsentr collaborated with the Journalists’ Union in launching a national contest for work on the theme of patriotic education.

2000–2005 and 2006–2010.

ROSTO (Rossiiskaia Oboronnaia Sportivno-Tekhnicheskaia Organizatsiia), formerly DOSAAF (Dobrovol'noe Obshchestvo Sodeistviia Armii) Voluntary Society for aid to the army, the air force and the marines, in charge of preparing recruits before military service, has been registered as a social organization since 2003. The military working in the society are detached from the Ministry of Defence. The Association's funding comes from these various sports clubs as well as from tenders won from the Defence Ministry for the preparation of recruits for specialities such as driving, communications, etc.

“The military commissariat is the local organ of the military administration. Military commissariats exist on the regional level (one per subject of the Federation) as well as on the local level (in urban districts and cities). On the local level, the military commissariat constitutes the link between the army and the population. It is in charge of recruiting soldiers for the draft, mobilizing citizens in case of a conflict, but also of the patriotic education of the population.”

Municipal cadet schools follow the same curriculum as the schools for the general public, with extra courses in military preparation. There are also “profiled” cadet classes within the traditional municipal schools: outside the general curriculum they provide a complementary programme oriented towards professions in the military, police force, fire or rescue brigades.

Osnovy Bezopasnosti Zhizny.

Principles of Military Service, or OVS (Osnovy voennoi sluzhby): a resurgence of Basic Military Training (Nachalnaia Voennaia Podgotovka) abolished at the end of the USSR. Its success is relative: for technical reasons, its implementation has been very slow.

Ibid.

For example, in February 2006, the Defence Ministry set up a joint action programme with the Union of Afghanistan Veterans entitled “Serving is not so terrible” (Sluzhit’ ne tak strashno).

Soviet roditelei voennosluzhashchikh Rossii.

Taran is presented as returning from the previous day's general mobilization exercise in the company of the heads of the local administrations and all the directors of the region.

General Shamanov, accused of violent acts in Chechnya, is the former governor of the region of Ulianovsk (2000–2004). Since March 2006 he has been advisor to the Defence Minister and in November 2007 was given responsibility for the moral training of officers. He is now in charge of the current military reform.

According to the law “on military function and military service,” a reservist can only be called up for training in his speciality once every three years; the length of service cannot extend beyond 12 months.

Unable to give benefits to all the Afghan veterans, the state gave them collective advantages such as tax privileges on tobacco and alcohol. Attracted by these advantages, the mafia infiltrated the Soviet veterans’ organizations and was soon able to control the market of these goods and make substantial profits.

Veterans’ associations, they say, would seem to be the basis of the army's decision to adopt orphans: it is likely that in the mid-1990s these associations put pressure on the Defence Ministry to do so.

It is nevertheless not inconceivable that veterans, individually and outside the veterans’ associations, might be involved in anti-war activities. But none of my interviewees ever mentioned being involved in such activities.

See Sergei Oushakine's chapter “Subjected to War: Military Brotherhood in Search of Recognition.”

All power ministries are part of this programme.

Prikaz no. 120 of the MVD, 1 Feb. 2007, provides for several measures for having veterans take part in work involving patriotic education; Prikaz no. 859, 30 Dec. 2007, “O privlechenii pensionerov k rabote v sisteme MVD Rossii.”

Cf. the website of the Association of Military Politologists.

Federal law no. 122, passed in 2004, came into force in January 2005 and replaced in-kind benefits with cash payments and transferred many responsibilities (in terms of social protection) to the regions.

Cf. the minutes of the meeting of the Central Council of Veterans’ Affairs of the Defence Ministry of 2 November 2005 (Central Council of Veterans’ Affairs of the Defence Ministry).

Prikaz no. 120 of the MVD, 1 Feb. 2007, which stipulates several measures for making veterans participate in patriotic education; Prikaz no. 859, 30 Dec. 2007, “O privlechenii pensionerov k rabote v sisteme MVD Rossii.”

Anna Politkovskaia, the Novaia Gazeta journalist assassinated in 2006, investigated this question in particular, as did the Sova Centre, which drew attention to xenophobic talk, racist words and acts perpetrated by Chechen veterans.

To do this, it was necessary to put in place Coordination Councils in the seven federal regions; they are made up of regional representatives of veterans’ councils, vice-ministers of the Interior of subjects of the Federation, directors of the GUVD, UVD and IVDT and the forces of the Interior of the MVD of Russia.

Such as, for instance, the journal published by the ROSTO Association: Voennye Znaniia.

Ibid.