Dedovshchina

In addition, the modern science of criminal and administrative law distinguishes between crimes committed within the framework of the so-called dedovshchina and "barracks hooliganism".

[4] At the same time, dedovshchina is an auxiliary tool in the hands of the leadership, which can shift most of its responsibilities for maintaining order to the leaders of the informal hierarchy,[3] offering them some benefits in return (early dismissals, lenient attitude to guilt, reduced physical activity, etc.)

According to Amangeldy Kurmetuly, dedovshchina happens because the modern Russian military is primarily composed of men who did poorly in school and could not enter a university, and they repay the "pressure and harassment" they often received from authority figures onto those weaker than them.

Manifestations of dedovshchina in the Russian army include forcing recruits to fully serve their "grandfathers" (for example, to wash their laundry), taking away money, clothes and food, subjecting them to systematic abuse and even torture, beating them severely, often causing serious bodily harm.

In others, the actions of recruits in retaliation, such as "Artūras Sakalauskas case", when a Lithuanian private, after being nearly raped, murdered five fellow military servicemen, as well as the head of the guard, his assistant and the train conductor on February 23, 1987.

In these groups, informal rules and customs are often formed, the observance of which is so important for young people that they are primarily guided by them, rather than by written laws and statutes.

[9] The phenomenon of hazing has been described as far back as Eton College in the 16th through 18th centuries, where the authority of fellow students was even more cruel and capricious than that of teachers.

[10] Peter Alekseevich Kropotkin described the traditions that prevailed in the mid 19th century in the most privileged military educational institution of the Russian Empire, the Page Corps.

[13] I had to listen to a long narrative about the bitter fate and misfortunes of the poor first-graders, who were "traditionally" cruelly insulted by the "majors" – second-year students, not to mention the upper grades.

The harsh "majors" of the first class forced the newcomers to "eat flies" as a punishment and just for fun, made "virgula" and "grease" on their short-cropped heads, and simply hit them in the ears on every occasion and even without it.

During the same year, a decision was reached to draft conscripts with a criminal history into the ranks, due to a demographic crisis following World War II.

While oppression by older conscripts has probably always taken place in the army, after that date, with the introduction of the four-class system (created by the bi-annual call-ups)[clarification needed] it became systematic and developed its own rules and ranks.

According to the candidate of sociological sciences A. Solnyshkov, the first and most productive works of Soviet scientists[19] dealing with the issues of dedovshchina appeared in 1964.

In addition, according to him, over forty years of studying the phenomenon of dedovshchina, domestic scientists have not managed to make significant progress compared to the productive work of A. D. Glotchokin and his students[20] in the early 1960s.

Over time, in a number of military units, officers began to use dedovshchina as a method of management, as they did not want to engage in training young people themselves, as well as educational work.

"[21] The bulk of the publicized cases of dedovshchina in the Russian Army are related to the use of young soldiers' labor for personal gain by the command staff of military units.

Dedovshchina originated in the 1960s in the Soviet army as a method of managing the non-statutory economic activities of military units[4] and continues to develop today.

"[6] In August 2002, Senior Lieutenant R. Komarnitsky demanded that Privates Tsvetkov and Legonkov leave the unit's location and go home to Samara and earn money through activities unrelated to army service.

[32] Hazing has continued to be an issue for the Azerbaijani military, becoming highly visible in 2008 when cell phone footage of recruits being beaten were leaked to YouTube.

In March 2013, large protests to demand greater openness and crackdowns on hazing were organized in Baku and were broken up by riot police; 80 demonstrators were arrested.

2010 saw public outcry due to a number of violent shooting incidents and the posting of a video which showed an officer beating two soldiers.

Activists complained that the Ministry of Defense was reluctant to provide any information regarding the vast majority of the deaths caused by hazing.

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan issued a statement that decisions would be made to address "problems associated with criminal subculture and discipline in the armed forces", which was generally understood as a reference to 'dedovschina', and fired two senior military officers.

The North Caucasian soldiers in particular were skilled in mixed martial arts, well-muscled, and attacked in groups, which allowed them to overpower their victims without the use of weapons.

According to Melnikova, soldiers serving in the Ministry of Emergency Situations under Shoigu were "enslaved by officers" and "beaten", and he did not take any action to stop it.

She said that prior Ministers of Defense, starting with Igor Rodionov, but specifically Sergei Ivanov and Anatoly Serdyukov, took measures to reduce the amount of violent instances of dedovshchina happening under their command.

[48] In 2020, the Mother's Right Foundation estimated that 44% of conscript deaths in Russia are caused by suicide, using data from "requests for help it has received".

A soldier who did not earn the respect of his fellow soldiers or who violated the principles of dedovshchina, and who refused to live "according to the dedovshchina" within three "golden days" after arriving at the military unit (the so-called "statutory" or "tightened"), may remain "unbroken" - in this case, he is not entitled to the privileges of the higher levels of the unofficial hierarchy, but is equated with "spirits" or "smells".

In 2003, on the specific issues of denial of food and poor nutrition, Deputy Minister of Defence V. Isakov denied the existence of such problems.

The following is a selected filmography: Also, in the novel The Hunt for Red October, Tom Clancy writes that veteran Soviet naval captain Marko Ramius refused to allow dedovshchina to be practiced anywhere on his boat, dismissing it as "low-level terrorism".