In July 2013, at a meeting of the collegium of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, the issue of improving the spiritual, moral and patriotic education of servicemen was considered, which, as the historical experience of the development of the armed forces of our state shows, should always underlie work to strengthen military discipline. Otherwise, a well-trained, skillful, physically strong and knowledgeable warrior may well become just a criminal posing a threat to society. applications, etc., the public hears little. There is almost no public discussion of this topic, and only from individual statements by military prosecutors can one understand that not everything is going well in this area of activity.
Recently, for the first time, they have noted the tendency for the dominance of general criminal offenses in the general structure of crime, which include encroachments on state property and budgetary funds allocated for defense needs. The number of fraudulent activities involving the use of official position, embezzlement and embezzlement is growing, the number of facts of bribery is not decreasing, and drug addiction is spreading. One of the reasons, undoubtedly, is the penetration of a thirst for enrichment into a certain part of the military environment, alien to it, but cultivated in society. All this cannot but affect the level of military discipline, and therefore damage the state of combat readiness of troops.
Many great Russian commanders and military leaders understood the relationship between the state of military discipline and the spiritual and moral education of servicemen. One of them, General M. I. Dragomirov, believed: "The discipline is to bring into the light of God all that is great and holy, hidden in the depths of the soul of the most ordinary person." He saw in her "the totality of all the moral, mental and physical skills necessary for officers and soldiers of all grades to meet their purpose."
Through the efforts of the progressive people of their time, the attitude towards military discipline changed, and the cruel measures to strengthen it were supplanted by humane methods of education. "The corporal's stick" has ceased to be the main argument in its achievement, when the army needed a reasonable initiative of each serviceman to achieve victory in battles and battles, which is impossible without a conscious attitude to the defense of the Fatherland. At the same time, the spiritual and moral aspect of military discipline took its rightful place in the set of decrees of the Russian Empire, where the requirements for the quality of servicemen were formulated. This is common sense; goodwill in the execution of orders; philanthropy; loyalty to the service; zeal for the common good; zeal for the position; honesty, selflessness and refraining from bribes; right and equal court; patronage of the innocent and offended. The Disciplinary Regulations of 1915, for example, for the benefit of the service obliged each chief in relation to his subordinates to be, first of all, fair, to take care of his welfare, to be not only a commander, but also an adviser, and also to avoid any inappropriate severity.
These and other qualities, love for the Fatherland and one's military unit, mutual assistance, and hard work were to be formed in the course of the interconnected process of training and educating servicemen. The main role in it belonged primarily to the officer, who was supposed to become a moral example for his subordinates. General M. D. Skobelev wrote that "iron" discipline is achieved by "the moral authority of the boss." Therefore, already in the military school, future officers, in addition to military knowledge, received basic concepts of morality and community. They were taught such virtues as wisdom, justice, courage and moderation, as well as the ability to determine the conformity of an act to the requirements of the moral law.
In the troops, certification of officers played an important role in moral education. An interesting list of questions formulated in the certification sheet of one of the regiments. The content of most of them was intended to determine, first of all, the moral state of the officer. They were specific, and the answers were assumed to be unambiguous. So, according to the first "attitude to military service" there were three possible answers: loves service, is indifferent, or is disdainful. It is enough to give one of the answers, and without any lengthy reviews, the essence of the officer is precisely determined. On the day of assessing positive qualities, it was necessary to put one point or a pass on the following characteristics: noble, impeccably honest, hardworking, truthful, tactful, polite, smart, does not drink, does not play cards, is capable of military service, is healthy. However, officers could have received completely opposite characteristics: ignoble, dishonest, deceitful, tactless, impolite, stupid, drinks a lot, plays a lot of cards, is not capable of military service, and is weak in health. The last question was, one might say, fateful - is it desirable to be certified in the regiment or not.
Thus, honor and dignity were brought up, and if they were available, there was something to protect from immorality. For this purpose and to maintain the valor of the officer rank, the disciplinary charter provided for a court of honor. He was entrusted with the task of considering actions incompatible with the concepts of military honor, service dignity, morality and nobility. In addition, the court dealt with the quarrels that happened among the officers. For each offense or quarrel, a thorough inquiry was carried out, and the maximum sentence could be handed down quite severe - "about removal from service." Also, the court could pass an acquittal or make a suggestion to the violator. The value of the court of honor was great, because it considered those violations from which, if you do not pay attention to them, criminal inclinations can develop. Its educational function was strengthened by the consideration of cases by colleagues and the collective intolerance of immoral acts. Given this attitude to the education and strengthening of military discipline, we can safely say that the officer should have treasured his honor and reputation.
In this regard, the ratio of the number of officers on trial to the payroll in 1881-1894 was constantly decreasing, by the end of this period it had almost halved. At the beginning of the next century, it began to increase somewhat. In 1910 there were 245 officers on trial (0.6% of their total number), in 1911 - 317 (0.8%), but by the beginning of the war it decreased again. In 1912, 325 officers were on trial (0.6%). In the general structure of crimes committed with a selfish purpose, forgery, bribery and extortion did not prevail. The most common were associated with official activities: violation of military rank: failure to appear on time for service; excess or inaction of power; violation of military deanery and others. Of the total number of convicts (228), only 44 (0.09%) were sentenced to hard labor, surrender to correctional detention units, imprisonment in a civilian department and a fortress, including one general. With regard to the rest, the courts confined themselves to the guardhouse, expulsion from service and other punishments.
Subsequently, despite the change in the social system, the class approach to the formation of a new army, its initial "democratization", causing an inevitable struggle with the carriers of the previous traditions, on much of what was positive in the experience of the Russian army, on spiritual and moral education and strengthening military discipline has not been forgotten, which confirms the continuity of the traditions of military education. In particular, the courts of honor remained, which began to be called comradely courts. Their attention should not have left a rudely mocking attitude towards subordinates, an insulting attitude towards others, unworthy behavior in everyday life (family), drunkenness, hooliganism and other offenses that characterize the moral state, especially of commanders. However, the essence of moral education, based on a religious worldview, was immediately excluded from this process. In 1918, in the official document "The Book of the Red Army Man" requirements were set forth, which in a compressed form included, among other things, Suvorov's instructions to the soldiers with some amendments by the Supreme Military Inspectorate, emasculating the spiritual and moral foundations of military discipline. So, Suvorov's instruction “A soldier should be healthy, brave, firm, resolved, just, pious. Pray to God! From him victory. Wonderful heroes! God leads us - he is our general! " was replaced by a spiritless appeal: "A soldier should be healthy, brave, firm and truthful."
This duality of recognition of the creative genius of the commander only on the one hand and the exclusion of the spiritual meaning from his instructions, on the other, could not but affect later, and this is confirmed by some documents.
In particular, in 1925, the resolution of the All-Union meeting of military-judicial officers on the issues of "On punitive policy" and "On crime in the Red Army" indicated a decrease in the level of discipline in the Red Army and the Navy. In 1928, in the decree of the Revolutionary Military Council of the USSR "On the political and moral state of the Red Army", a number of negative phenomena were noted among the commanding staff. The growth of drunkenness and cases of unacceptable disciplinary distortions, sometimes reaching direct mockery of the Red Army soldier, a high level of suicides. Cases of "eyewash", which can be more accurately called a lie, and "borrowing" from the Red Army have become widespread.
From the certificates of personnel bodies it follows that in 1936 4918 (3, 9%) people of command and command personnel were dismissed from the army. Including for drunkenness and political and moral inconsistency, as well as those arrested and convicted - 2,199 (1, 7%). The next two years saw an increase in the number of dismissed commanders for reasons of drunkenness, moral decay and plunder of the national property, but in 1939 their decline was outlined. In the structure, mercenary offenses have not yet prevailed. In the first place were military, then official, economic, against the order of government and counterrevolutionary.
In order to further strengthen military discipline, the military-political leadership of the country introduced into the disciplinary regulations of 1940 the thesis that "Soviet discipline of the Red Army should be higher, stronger and differ in more severe and stringent requirements than discipline based on class subordination in other armies." … The first part of it quite rightly expresses the attitude towards strengthening military discipline, and the second clearly indicates a lack of educational work. It was supposed to be compensated for by severity and harshness, but after one year, at the initial stage of the Great Patriotic War, the line between them and outright violence was apparently crossed. Cases of lawlessness and gross abuse of power on the part of individual commanders and commissars in relation to their subordinates became intolerable, and an order was issued by the People's Commissar of Defense on the facts of replacing educational work with repression.
At present, the requirement for the moral education of servicemen in the guidelines for strengthening military discipline, the Concept for the education of servicemen of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation and others, has been given appropriate attention. The disciplinary charter regarding the duties of the commander in order to maintain high military discipline explicitly states that the commander must be "an example of moral purity, honesty, modesty and justice." If you look at the most important document designed to promote the education of an officer - the instruction on the procedure for organizing and carrying out certification of military personnel undergoing military service under a contract - we will see that it does not fully contribute to the development of these qualities.
Undoubtedly, all the questions posed in it for the characterization of an officer are useful and necessary, but the overwhelming majority of them relate to the definition of business qualities. Of the 10 questions requiring detailed answers, only one, along with the ability to critically assess one's own activities, be creative in approach to business, be persistent in performing official duties, have authority in the military collective, be able to organize the protection of state secrets, are deeply hidden at the very end of moral and psychological qualities. Consequently, when drawing up a review of the attested, the commander will almost always confine himself to a phrase that is empty in content and does not reflect the moral qualities of a person, but a phrase that is meaningful in form - morally and psychologically stable.
In this case, a whole group of characteristics falls out of sight of commanders and superiors, if a subordinate has them: rudeness, greed, deceit, injustice, immodesty, immodesty, etc. military unit or military educational institution and institution. The gathering of officers has little influence, and there is no analogue of the court of honor of the Russian army or a comradely court of honor for officers of the Armed Forces of the USSR. He could, taking care of the moral purity of his ranks, take serious measures of social influence, as it was before, up to the initiation of a petition for a reduction in rank, in the military rank by one level and for the expulsion of a student officer from a higher educational institution.
