Ethnic conflicts in the army. Why do they arise and what is being done. Again about Russians and Caucasians in the Russian army Problems with Caucasians in the army
Caucasians in the army are the talk of the town since the time of the "Wild Division". The Soviet military leaders could not cope with the hot wayward guys. Only if ten years ago their ethnic self-consciousness did not allow them to wash their socks and wash the floors in the barracks, today their religious feelings do not allow them to shave their beards, in accordance with the charter. The inter-confessional conflict is exacerbated by the fact that the military leadership is not placed in the most convenient position. The Code of Administrative Offenses, in accordance with the new law “on protecting the feelings of believers” adopted by the State Duma, proposes to supplement the Criminal Code with an article “for obstructing the exercise of the right to freedom of conscience and religion” and to fine ordinary citizens for 50 thousand rubles, and officials - for 100 thousand . rub. Read about how the religious principles of military personnel collide with the army charter in the material of the correspondent of "Caucasian Politics".
A beard in the army is purely a tribute to tradition. Alexander the Great was the first to order beards to be shaved in the army - the Persians grabbed his soldiers by the beard, which did not have the best effect on the outcome of the battles. That's how it's been since then.
In the Russian army, only naval officers are allowed to wear a beard - again due to tradition. Probably because they do not have to participate in hand-to-hand fights.
To shave or not to shave, to be or not to be
Sergey Rossomahin, head of the department of the KhMAO military commissariat for the city of Raduzhny, announced the growth of Wahhabi sentiment among conscripts from the North Caucasus. He acknowledged having numerous problems with them during military service. According to Rossomahin, he was instructed not to draft the natives of the North Caucasus and Muscovites into the army.
“Open disobedience to the orders of the commanders, the imposition of national customs that are contrary to the charter, the refusal to be examined in the PND and to undergo a surgeon. The soldiers refuse to shave because they consider themselves true Muslims. In addition to this, the majority of young people (from the Caucasus) are prone to the ideas of Wahhabism,” Sergey Rossomahin, head of the department of the military commissariat of Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug-Yugra for the city of Raduzhny, told the Surgut Tribune newspaper.
The first such statement was made three years ago. The military commissar of the Chelyabinsk region, Nikolai Zakharov, said that he would not "conscript" Caucasians. Such measures are allegedly supposed to reduce ethnic tension in the army created by conscripts from the North Caucasian republics.
However, the innovation led to the fact that the conscription plan for the remaining regions had to be increased. The "first sign" in 2010 was the statement on April 1 of the military commissariat of Dagestan that the spring conscription order for the republic was reduced from 2000-4000 to 400 people To this day there is no accurate and reliable information whether there really is an order from the General Staff, but the problem of national there have been conflicts in the army, indeed, for a long time and not only because of appearance. Violation of the regime of military service, according to military regulations there is also a five-time prayer, which includes a loud call to prayer - adhan, regarded by commanders as giving a voice signal at an inopportune time.
I want to serve, it's sickening to serve
The North Caucasus, in general, and Dagestan, in particular, have always been distinguished by a high recruitment into the ranks Russian army and, if, for example, in the northern or central regions of Russia, conscripts were “unfastened” for the opportunity to evade service, then the Dagestanis paid just for the opportunity to get into it. Particularly zealous even resorted to unconventional methods. Muslim Abdulaev recalls how four years ago, in order to be drafted into the army, he left for the Voronezh region and registered with his uncle. “When I came to the draft board, the military commissar decided that I was crazy. He was so surprised that he began to persuade him not to join the army. For a long time I could not understand what was happening, even sent me to a psychiatrist,” he recalls with a laugh. He got to work in Murmansk, but did not experience cardinal problems there. He, as an employee of the fleet, was not forbidden to wear beards, and on the submarine the very atmosphere of service is different. “Well, I didn’t go too far. I was a Muslim there. I changed cans of stew from rations to buckwheat or something else, my colleagues were even happy. But maybe if I had support, I would also be the right to download, ”says Muslim.
Few are lucky. Few are also willing to "bend under the system." Previously, Russian military leaders offered mono-ethnic units to resolve such conflicts. However, this, as well as the general refusal to call up natives of the North Caucasian republics, is only an excuse to apply to constitutional Court Russia. An attempt to solve the problem was made by Dagestan parliamentarians. In the light of the new national policy in the army proposed by Shoigu, 11 deputies from Dagestan wrote an appeal to the new Minister of Defense with a request to increase the draft from the republic in 2013 to 35 thousand people! According to their version, this would allow directing the energy of young Dagestanis in a peaceful direction.
Attempts to contact the military commissariat of Dagestan and get their explanations in response to the attacks failed. - All information is only in response to a written request, the answer will also be given in writing, ”but there was no response to the fax sent.
War and Peace
In fact, such conflicts are typical not only for the Russian army. Menachem Stern, 29, an Orthodox rabbi from Crown Heights in Brooklyn, is a military chaplain whose victory over army routine is that, after nearly three years of fighting, he was allowed to serve without shaving off his beard. According to the charter of the American army, the serviceman must also be carefully shaved.
Only the numbers are irrefutable; according to official figures, 153,000 people will be drafted into the Russian army this year. Only 300 conscripts will serve from Chechnya, and 800 from Dagestan. Although every year in these republics up to 10,000 young people register for military service.
There are other official data from the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, according to them, the number of crimes in the army is growing, and every fourth crime in the army is associated with violence. And often this violence occurs on ethnic grounds. In the first half of 2012, the number of ordinary crimes in the Russian army for the first time exceeded the number of military ones.
Last year, about 16,500 conscripts from the republics of the North Caucasus were called up, and there are complaints that "their distribution among the troops is uneven." How to make it even? "Soldier's mothers" demand to send one conscript from the Caucasus to each unit. Parts in Russia are about 16 thousand times, that is, exactly one at a time is exactly what happens. However, sending Caucasians one by one is also dangerous - what if they offend, also on ethnic grounds?
We have learned to stop conflicts, but not to solve them, and until we learn this, there will never be reconciliation. The main problem remains the same - society itself is not ready to compromise.
Digest
Compatriots stand apart among immigrants from the Caucasus - "Caucasians" in terminology Soviet army. In our time, they are usually united in the troops by the common name "Dagestanis" or "Dags". It is fundamentally important that people from the Caucasus unite under any conditions and can even organize a rebuff to their grandfathers, as well as the actual and official leaders of the unit. Moreover, Caucasians are united not only within the framework of one unit, but the entire part as a whole. At the same time, in any conditions, they rush to help their own, which is a manifestation of the national mentality (more about it can be found in the chapter "Army in the Caucasus").
With a small number of Caucasians are relatively harmless, at least they do not violate the unity of the team, do not destroy the existing hierarchy of hazing or ustavshchina. Their grandfathers are afraid of them, and keep them at some distance, or include them among the privileged members of the unit. In any case, whether they are among the chosen ones or simply left to their own devices, Caucasians are characterized by excessive and often senseless cruelty towards others. They have only two psychological models of behavior: they either recognize others as higher than themselves in status, or lower; in principle, they do not consider representatives of other nationalities as equals.
When there are too many Caucasians in the unit, the situation gets completely out of control. Caucasians completely subjugate hazing, ceasing to maintain relative neutrality with grandfathers, and deal a serious blow to the hazing by introducing their excessive cruelty into relations in the unit. Needless to say, they completely replace grandfathers in the worst sense of the word and turn the young into personal slaves. And if, under hazing, such slavery is based largely on a voluntary beginning, on the understanding that oppression will pass with a lifetime of service, then when Caucasians dominate, all representatives of other nationalities are doomed to a subordinate position until the very end of their service. Inequality thus takes on particularly striking forms, without the admixture of social justice, when respect comes with service life.
It comes to the point that the officers themselves treat Caucasians with apprehension, shun them and do not take any measures to restore order. There is a strong belief in the army that a Caucasian is capable of any extreme, including simply stabbing an offender with a knife, regardless of his status. Such a belief did not arise from scratch, it is associated with the general "recklessness" in extreme situation Caucasians, especially Chechens. They simply blow the roof, and they cease to be guided by reason, completely surrendering to the instincts of a fighter. So Slavic patience is not characteristic of Caucasians in principle, and they turn out to be foreign inclusions in the Slavic army at its core.
The only control over Caucasians can be found only if the unit has a Caucasian grandfather, a contract soldier or an officer who immediately builds the most severe hierarchy among his own. Also, among the Caucasians, a strong de facto leader can stand out, who will also build a rigid hierarchy, only it will be even more difficult to introduce him into the official hierarchy than grandfathers.
Now they say a lot of flattering words about the white movement and the officers of the times Russian Empire, however, they forget one interesting moment in the social practice of our feudal ancestors: balanced nationalism. The vast majority of the officers of the Russian Empire were of Slavic nationality, the inclusion of Jews among them was an exceptional phenomenon. There were special qualifications in educational institutions on a national basis, moreover, these qualifications were aimed at limiting penetration into the Slavic educational establishments foreigners, while the Soviet qualification, on the contrary, pursued its goal of placing people from national republics in a privileged position.
But another aspect of the imperial national policy is important for us. Indigenous peoples (including the Samoyeds) of the Urals and Siberia, residents of Turkestan, foreigners of the Trans-Caspian Territory, Muslim peoples of the North Caucasus (paid tax instead of service), residents of Finland (the state itself paid for them a fixed deduction to the treasury of the Russian Empire). Cossacks close to Caucasians in spirit served only in special Cossack troops. And this is not the whole list. Here we can say that, they say, the Russian top leadership did not trust some of the conquered and constantly rebellious Caucasian peoples, but how then to explain the exemption from conscription of a number of foreigners and Samoyeds? It can only be explained by a historically developed clear understanding that people who undermine the combat effectiveness of the Russian army have no place here. Too much at that time depended on the army (see the chapter "Some interesting touches on the organization of the army of the Russian Empire").
Thus, in the policy of the Russian Empire, which did not take representatives of a number of Caucasian, Asian and Trans-Ural peoples into the army, even under conditions of universal military service, there was a sober calculation and a balanced national policy. Now all this is gone, and army personnel officers are forced to proceed from the officially accepted postulate of ideology about the need to create all conditions for the national republics to the detriment of national Russian interests. According to the official position of those in power, we do not have the same people as the Russians with a special mentality. In this regard, the authorities continue the policy of the USSR, which partly led to its defeat in the Cold War.
What peoples of Russia are not drafted into the army?
Service in the Armed Forces is a rather important, responsible and obligatory stage for every citizen. Thanks to constant modernization, the army can provide a young person not only with general military training skills, but also learn many interesting professions. However, not everyone is destined to get into the troops, because due to the peculiarities of the draft campaign, citizens who belong to small nations are not subject to conscription.
What nations are not drafted into the army?
Within the territory of modern Russia about 140 million citizens live, while among the total population there are small peoples with an average number of people of about 10,000 - 100,000 individuals. A small group of peoples include: Ingush, Yakuts, Lezgins, Avars, Maris, Kumyks, Chuvashs, Chechens, Dargins and Kabardians. The general list includes the indigenous people of all remote areas, in particular Taimyr and Evenkia. Most domestic military registration and enlistment offices do not call up Dagestanis either, with the exception of individual cases when a citizen independently applies for the purpose of service and further employment.
The main reasons for the lack of conscription
The absence of military conscription among the listed groups of peoples is due to the fact that citizens live in fairly remote areas where there is virtually no infrastructure and administrative management. It is problematic, and sometimes simply impossible, for representatives of the military registration and enlistment offices to organize a draft campaign. For example, in order to register all young men in Yakutia, it is necessary to equip special points for medical examination and paperwork. The northern military registration and enlistment offices do not have such funds, because any recruiting activities are, first of all, large financial costs.
However, lack of money is not the only reason. For example, in Chechnya, in fact, there is no conscription into the army just because there is no tuned system of military registration in the republic. Moreover, not all districts have military registration and enlistment offices. In addition to the above reasons, the absence of conscription among small peoples is facilitated by the adoption of a provision in the Constitution in 1993, which clearly states that each conscription is regulated by federal laws, and the number of people for service is set by the president. At the same time, specific regions from where recruitment should be carried out are not indicated.
Why don't Chechens serve in the Russian army?
Not so long ago, at the end of 2014, the Chechen people were delighted with the news about the start of conscription into the Russian army. The last time Chechens were called up for military service in the Russian Federation was 20 years ago. However, in the spring of 2016, conscription from Chechnya was again suspended.
The essence of the problem
According to the liberal press, not a single citizen of Chechnya was called up for military service in the Russian army last year. About 7,000 potential soldiers were left behind. According to the same sources, in all the other republics of the Caucasus, everything is strikingly different with conscription. It was also noted that the decision not to draft Chechens comes directly from the top leadership.
Dubious Privilege
In 2017, residents of Chechnya will again have to miss the spring draft, as reported by the republican commissariat. The decision was made in connection with the desire to minimize the risk of clashes within military units, which, alas, are taking place. Most often, conscripts from the Caucasian lands form the so-called fraternities in parts, provoking conflicts on cultural and national grounds.
There is another version of this decision: the General Staff does not want to train future Chechen fighters. It's no secret that many residents of Chechnya are, albeit distant, but still relatives of real militants. There is no point in teaching military science to your enemies. At the same time, it is practically impossible or too costly to implement a thorough selection among Chechens on the principle of "loyal/disloyal".
Prospects for solving the problem
If we consider the statistics of 2014, when Chechen soldiers were admitted to the Russian army for the first time in 20 years, then it is very positive. The dynamics of the service of conscripts from Chechnya is characterized in an optimistic way: about 181 servicemen from the North Caucasus region returned home with letters of thanks. 100 of them were promoted to junior commander. From this we can conclude that in the near future the conscription of Chechen residents may resume. In addition, from the point of view of state policy, such an approach is at least unacceptable, and at the maximum it can lead to interethnic strife. After all, not all Chechens are militants. Plus, today there are solid databases for every family in Chechnya, which allow you to automatically receive information about each conscript.
Many soldiers and officers testify that it is very difficult to serve together with Caucasians. Highlanders tend to disobey orders and bully anyone who can't stand up for themselves. The military department prefers to keep silent about the "Caucasian yoke" in the Russian Armed Forces until the next emergency.
The Chelyabinsk court recently passed a sentence on private Zainalabid Gimbatov, a serviceman of military unit 69806 (Urals Military District). Private is accused of hazing with colleagues. In addition, a native of the Caucasus is charged with article 282 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, part 2, paragraph "a" ("Incitement of hatred or enmity, as well as humiliation of human dignity, committed with violence").
The military investigation department for the Chelyabinsk garrison established the following. In February 2011, Gimbatov arrived at the medical isolation ward of his unit. At the checkpoint, Gimbatov said that he was going to visit his colleagues. There were indeed several soldiers from his company on treatment in the medical battalion. The serviceman gave their names and ranks and was admitted to the isolation ward.
Gimbatov went to the isolation ward where the sick soldiers lay. Private immediately felt superior to them. Firstly, because he was absolutely healthy, and secondly, because he is a Dagestani. Gimbatov guessed that the "Dags" in his unit were secretly disliked, and decided to get even for it. Gimbatov's gaze swept over the beds and settled on three soldiers of Slavic appearance.
The private ordered the sick soldiers to stand up. They initially refused, but the Dagestani used force. The soldiers reluctantly obeyed. Then Gimbatov took out his mobile phone and turned on one of the tunes, a combat lezginka. On the recording, the melody of the Caucasian dance alternated with machine gun shots, the howl of wolves and the roar of cannonade. Maybe an ardent Caucasian, listening to her, felt proud, but a Russian person will not listen to such a thing. Moreover, the entry began with the words: "In the name of Allah! Dedicated to the warriors of jihad in the Caucasus."
Gimbatov ordered the sick soldiers to dance. The soldiers refused. Then the Dagestani began to beat them. The sick servicemen obeyed and began to clumsily imitate the Caucasian dance. Gimbatov, sitting on a stool, watched the soldiers. He insulted them in every possible way, and if the soldiers lost their rhythm or did not move as they should, he beat them.
The rest of the soldiers who were undergoing treatment in the medical battalion silently watched the mockery of their colleagues. It seemed that the actions of the impudent Caucasian and the suffering of their comrades did not concern them.
For bullying sick soldiers, Gimbatov received a year in a disciplinary battalion. Disbat in the army is a cruel thing, but it is not known whether it will "cure" Gimbatov. The situation as a whole cannot be corrected by such measures. Because there are hundreds, if not thousands, of such unpunished gimbatovs in the Russian armed forces. Against the backdrop of impudent Caucasians, the "hazing" that everyone scolds seems to be an innocent prank.
The author of one of the online books, who served as an "urgent" in the mid-90s, wrote about military personnel from the Caucasus as a "problem for the army." According to the author, Caucasians, in particular, natives of Dagestan, join the army in order to integrate into the army hierarchy in any way and lead to military units their orders:
“It all starts with “heating up” the “grandfathers”: vodka, a guitar, a promise to identify informers, keep order. They approach officers in the same way. take on the role of commanders for cleaning the barracks, so as not to wash themselves.They also argue that they refuse to wash floors in the army by the fact that faith does not allow them, they must perform namaz (prayer) five times a day, you can only do this with clean hands, I never noticed that they prayed in the army.
If the officers and regulations interfere with the Dagestanis, then they try to get into the part where the power of the officers is not very strong. And here they immediately take everything into their own hands. Dagestanis often try to become sergeants, to take control of such vital facilities in the army as a supply room and a canteen. They usually manage to establish their orders in military units where there is no clear authority of officers".
According to the author, gangster lawlessness begins here. When the commander of the unit had a summer vacation, the servicemen from the Caucasus felt they were the only authority. Some of the "dugs" were commissioned, having agreed in advance with the medical unit, the other simply went into indefinite "AWOL". Those who remained immediately got used to the situation and realized that anarchy played into their hands: “The part was destroyed and plundered, there was no bath for three weeks, unauthorized absence was the norm. work in dachas, steal. Officers beat the command of the unit, just as recklessly using soldiers in construction work. "
When the ill-fated unit 52386 was finally disbanded, many soldiers were transferred to military unit 41692. This unit was already "half under the control of the Dagestanis." Despite the fact that the highlanders were at most 15 people. The Dagestanis managed to “build” a unit due to the weakness of the officer power: “The Dagestanis imposed tribute on everyone they could: for example, ten dollars a day from every four people. Whether they steal at the facilities or go to shoot money is their business. The command failed to take any measures against them. It is worth noting that everyone used this type of extortion, only the Dagestanis knew how to do it in a more organized manner.
Where all the personnel were staffed by Caucasians, the officers also began to suffer: "Starley Budko said that when he served in the military unit, the entire personnel of which consisted of Dagestanis, the first thing he saw in the morning, opening the door from the office, is a mop flying at him."
This was in the 1990s. And here is what is happening in our time.
Not so long ago, the Chelyabinsk military commissar (in his tenure) Nikolai Zakharov announced that there would no longer be a conscription of Caucasians in his garrison. The military commissar said that this was not his personal decision, but the order of the General Staff of the RF Armed Forces, concerning all military districts of the country. Colonel Zakharov then said that the Ministry of Defense was concerned about the dominance of national gangs that terrorize military units. Therefore, in the spring of 2011, all natives of the Caucasus and the Transcaucasian republics will not join the Russian army. In the Central Military District of the Russian Ministry of Defense, Chelyabinsk journalists received the following comment: “There are no oral orders from the General Staff of the RF Armed Forces regarding whether or not to call up a certain contingent of people. Perhaps the military commissar misunderstood something at a meeting in Moscow, with He will have a proper discussion." Subsequently, Colonel Zakharov was relieved of his post as military commissar. And in the means mass media there was news that was directly opposite to the words of the Chelyabinsk colonel. According to a number of media outlets, the Russian military department decided to sharply increase the draft of Dagestanis into the army. The media believed that this decision was caused by a shortage of conscripts from other regions, and the Ministry of Defense decided to plug a gap in the last mass recruitment of the Dagestanis into the army.
Pravda.Ru has repeatedly written about how natives of the Caucasus behave in military units. We recall only the most high-profile incidents that have happened in recent years.
On the Baltic Fleet, Dagestan conscripts mocked their colleagues in every possible way. According to the case file, in August 2009, sailors Vitaly Shakh, Gadzhibakhmud Kurbanov, Arag Eminov, Sirazhutdin Cheriev, Naib Taygibov, Islam Khamurzov, Jamal Temirbulatov beat about 15 colleagues, and then forced them to lie on the ground so that the word KAVKAZ came out of their bodies . Prior to this crime, "grandfathers" repeatedly robbed and beat conscripts.
The almost total skinning of Russians, which began after the death of Stalin in 1953 and accelerated sharply after Khrushchev's "exposure of the cult of personality" in 1956, led to their demoralization-depassionarization and eventually culminated in the self-treasonous Russian Catastrophe-1991. All these processes took place before my eyes, I was especially impressed by the mass mating of Russian girls with dark-skinned southerners at the World Festival of Youth and Students in Moscow in 1957, and my text “Charter of Morality” (1965) should be considered as a reaction to the spreading epidemic of selfishness, because for which they began to consider me a "fascist" and expelled me from the ranks of the CPSU and from politics. And I just see further than others, and sound the alarm. At one time, the ancient Jews, brought out of Egyptian captivity by Moses, also after the departure of their harsh Leader, indulged in the selfish temptation of the Golden Calf of consumerism and would also have perished, like Russians now, if Moses had not returned and had not carried out a Great Purge in the Jewish camp and had not returned the people on the true path of being chosen by God (Exodus 32). It is bitter to admit, but rare Russian youths today are able to stand up for themselves. But the Caucasians and partly the Mongols (Kalmyks, Buryats) have retained their readiness for self-sacrifice, without which the people are generally not viable, and cannot but dominate the skinned and therefore scattered Russian soldiers in the Russian army. Therefore, many Caucasian youths perceive the draft as a gift - they go to the army with the confidence that they will not be lost, but will experience the joys of dominance (not to mention good allowances and exacting tribute from Russian colleagues). Not officers and not priests will save Russian youth from the miserable fate of today, but only (as it has always been and everywhere in history) a few close-knit "long-willed" organizers aimed at restoring order in the country and at global expansion (analogous to the "New Moses"). - Original taken from pohabij_oplueff in the army - for a bribe
Bribes in military registration and enlistment offices are a common place. But there is a nuance: if all over Russia the families of conscripts collect money for an offering to the military commissar in order to “smear” their child from military service, then in the Caucasus it is the other way around. Relatives take the bribe to the draft board in order to send the conscript to the troops. And they don’t take them to serve! It's not the first year. No, at home, in the Caucasus, some of the young people still do military service. And they remain for extra urgent service - remember, during the Five-Day War with Georgia there were such battalions "East" and "West"? Worthy warriors served in them. But Caucasians are not called to serve in units quartered throughout Russia. Why? Reading the news: Recruits from the regions of the North Caucasus will not be drafted into the Russian army in 2012 due to the fight against hazing and community, a senior Russian Defense Ministry spokesman told reporters on Monday (hence). Yes, I served in the army in the late eighties, and I can confirm that a few Chechens or Dagestanis in part are a headache for officers and physical pain - from regular beatings - for a significant part of the soldiers. "Countrymen" behave more often loosely than loyally. If the highlander respects his officer, there will be order. But if not, they can break him in such a way that the stars from the shoulder straps will fly out. I know what I'm talking about, I have seen this more than once in a construction battalion near Moscow. It is very difficult to serve with the Chechens and Dagestanis. But after all, even those Caucasians who are not taken into the army to pay their debt to the Motherland - they our. Citizens of Russia. And the defense of the Fatherland is not the privilege of a citizen. This is his sacred duty. In fact, there are a lot of options. If you want to avoid hazing for sure - you can create special units of highlanders with highlander officers at the head - and send them even to Siberia, even to Far East. The guys will go, they will not refuse. You can ... yes, you can think of a lot more using Russian historical experience. But the Ministry of Defense either cannot do this, or does not want to. They say that the call of recruits from the Caucasus will be resumed next year. Something like that has been said for more than a year now. They promise. But they won't restart anyway. At the same time, they forget that the habit of giving military duty to their homeland - Russia among the mountain peoples can atrophy as unnecessary. I don't want to croak about the possible consequences of such an atrophy...
