One cannot but agree with the popular assertion that real life experience comes only when the number of mistakes made personally turns into quality. But if in civilian life this statement has the right to be applied, which has been proven over the years, then mistakes made in the army will never turn into quality. The army is a school of life for any man, but the army should not only train military specialists, but also educate young people. To our great regret, it is impossible to say that our army is a real educator. First of all, this is due to such a negative phenomenon as hazing. Bullying has been fought and eradicated for more than one year, but despite all efforts, it continues to exist, and this is one of the factors that makes young people unwilling to go to serve. They just don't want to be humiliated. However, these same young people after a certain period of service themselves humiliate their younger colleagues, and so from year to year.
Several years ago, the Russian army switched to a new term of service, and senior military officials assured each and every one that now there is no hazing and it cannot be for the simple reason that after the transition to a term of service of one year, all calls are practically equal in age and there can be no hazing between them a priori. But in the end, nothing good came of this decision. Instead of old conscripts, young conscripts are now being bullied by contract soldiers and conscripts, but who are part of the groups of compatriots. It should be noted that the very concept of hazing is not limited to service life, it is something else, and the army itself, with its established system of relationships, is to blame for this. A large number of regular officers are inclined to a similar thought, who are sure that it is intra-army relations that are the very hazing.
To understand what is happening in the army today, consider a few examples.
Seven sailors, natives of the Republic of Dagestan, served in one of the military units of the Baltic Fleet. These servicemen were punished for bullying their colleagues. Six of them were sentenced to a term of 1, 5 to 1, 9 years in prison, and the seventh, who for some unknown reason passed at the beginning as a witness, was eventually sentenced on probation. It began with the fact that in August 2010 the convicts severely beat one of the servicemen, and after that they forced 26 of their comrades to lie on the ground, but not just, but so that their bodies would make the inscription KAVKAZ. According to the information provided by the Prosecutor General's Office, during the investigation of the criminal case that was initiated against the Caucasian sailors, other negative facts were revealed, in particular, extortion and theft of personal property from conscripts. The offenders were charged with extortion, robbery and, most importantly, hazing. As for the presence of bullying in this case, we note that the convicted Dagestanis were younger than those who were bullied.
An interesting idea on this issue was expressed by the captain of the second rank Nikolai Vasyutin, deputy. the commander of one of the military units of the Northern Fleet for educational work: Honestly, if it were not for the approaching pension, which I served in absolute volume and which no one will take away from me, I, of course, would not talk about hazing. Too slippery. and at the same time it is a burning topic, its bosses are too hateful. Alas, the times of the USSR, where the patriotic and pre-conscription education of young people was put at the highest level, are long gone. Modern conscripts were born after the collapse of the Soviet Union! Young people, brought up by the dashing and unrestrained 90s, who have tried and sometimes addicted to drugs and alcohol, brought up on endless gangster TV shows and intoxicated by movements and sects such as skinheads, Goths and the like, enter the service. It is with these personnel that we are now forced to serve. Of course, you cannot speak to them in their language, but sometimes they simply do not understand a normal language.
What is the way out? In strengthening the system of pre-conscription training, which was lost with the collapse of the USSR. It is necessary to introduce in military units new, but such necessary additional positions of officers-educators, officers-psychologists. You should not be ashamed and avoid the development of a system of religious education, which should not be limited only to the Orthodox faith, but the Muslim faith, Buddhism and Judaism should also be present. You should also not neglect the technical means of monitoring the personnel while the servicemen are in the barracks and cockpits. First of all, this is due to the fact that it is much cheaper to install a video camera than to deal with the "exploits" of the barracks criminals - "grandfathers" and "fellow countrymen" later. Of course, these are far from all available measures to combat such negative phenomena as hazing and fellow countrymen, but they can become the basis for further struggle!"
As another example, let's take information that appeared in the media not so long ago. In Novosibirsk, a trial began in a rather complicated and unsightly case of a major of the local military unit Nikolai Levoy. A career officer defended the soldiers from the tyranny of a group of fellow countrymen - Dagestani soldiers. The horsemen quickly got used to the new living conditions and imposed a tribute on the conscripts who entered the service from other regions of Russia. They demanded up to half of the monthly allowance from their comrades in arms, and those who refused to pay were severely beaten.
Throughout the year, Russian soldiers obeyed meekly and endured bullying. But patience, in the end, came to an end, in part there was a real riot. They put things in order with difficulty, information about the current situation reached the top military leadership. The Dagestanis were immediately sent to other units. But there can be no one guilty in the army, and someone must answer for the riots that have taken place - after all, this is the most emergency! Major Levy was named responsible for everything.
But what's strange is that during an internal investigation it was established that the major pursued only one goal - to protect the injured soldiers. The members of the commission knew very well about this, but they believed the Dagestanis, who, with tears in their eyes, told how the evil and bad Major Levy turned other soldiers against them and how he sowed interethnic strife. It's a shame that they believed the criminals, and not other servicemen and the officer himself. Of course, now the regular officer will be punished, and the "honest" Dagestanis will serve their term and return home to talk about their "heroic deeds". If this approach to the consideration of cases related to hazing is applied in the future, then there is no need to talk about the eradication of hazing.
For the most part, this problem relates to social life, and this is what Sergey Akinfiev, associate professor, candidate of sociological sciences, said in one of his interviews: up to 39% of young people categorically refuse to serve in the army, resorting to "deviation", which is a violation of the law. 29% hope for a postponement. Among the rest there is no internal rejection of military service, there is no fear of bullying. 10-15 years ago such data were completely different, and the prestige of the modern army is growing. By the way, it was definitely noted that the higher the increase in the salaries of the military, the higher this prestige is!"
The opinion of psychologists on this issue is also curious, this is how Igor Yanushev, a psychologist, a candidate of medical sciences, sees the situation in the army: “It should be noted that today, of course, there is no positive attitude towards the army that was, say, back in the days of the USSR: it was believed that if a young man did not serve in his age due to his age, it means that he had a serious illness. Such is the current reality: unfortunately, the prestige of military service has significantly decreased, as the people say, “below the baseboard.” The number of draft evaders from military service is calculated, only according to official data, not in hundreds, but in tens of thousands. What is most contradictory in this matter is that the higher the standard of living, the more "deviators" there are! You can talk about the armed forces, but against the obvious statistics, as they say, you cannot argue and you cannot argue …"
