On his Facebook page, Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Dmitry Rogozin posted information of the following nature:
The Ministry of Defense, in accordance with my instructions, confirmed its readiness to restore the number of military acceptance to 25 thousand people. This is exactly how much it should be according to the Decree of the President of Russia. Under Minister A. E. Serdyukov, they were reduced to 7, 5 thousand officers. The radical reduction in military representatives led to a drop in the quality of military products.
It is worth recalling that in the summer, Vladimir Putin was concerned about the situation with what is happening in the military acceptance. And this concern manifested itself after more and more situations began to arise in which significant claims were made to the quality of military-technical products supplied from enterprises. Often, the level of quality of units of military equipment entering the troops was extremely low, as was repeatedly stated by experts from the Ministry of Defense. Moreover, the low quality of the produced military equipment has repeatedly become one of the reasons that foreign states are much less willing to agree to conclude contracts with Russian suppliers. Even trusted partners (for example, India) stated that the quality of equipment coming from Russia (both new and equipment after modernization) leaves much to be desired.
Obviously, this situation hurt Russia's prestige as one of the recognized world leaders in the production of modern weapons. And the loss of prestige in such a case inevitably leads to an economic blow, which is simply unacceptable. And if this is unacceptable, then you need to start a real campaign to fight for the quality of military-technical products manufactured by Russian enterprises from the defense industry.
But where to start such a campaign? The answer, at first glance, is obvious: it is necessary to cancel what Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov once undertook and restore the number of military acceptance (that is, military representatives-controllers) to the previous scale, namely, in the amount of 25 thousand people. However, this is only at first glance … After all, the system of military control of the production sphere has its own pitfalls.
Let's consider these nuances in more detail.
First, you need to understand the question of what kind of work are performed by the very military representatives of the Ministry of Defense, whose numbers are preparing to return to the "pre-reform" values. Military envoys are military personnel who, let's say, are dispatched by the Ministry to certain production enterprises in order to carry out quality control of the military-technical products manufactured by these enterprises. It should be noted that controllers from among the experienced military, designed to monitor products coming from factories to the troops, appeared about 3 centuries ago. Peter the Great initiated the introduction of this kind of service. Military missions of a controlling nature received special development during the Soviet Union, when any marriage (especially marriage in the military-technical sphere) was detected quite effectively, and those guilty of producing low-quality products were punished deservedly. It should be noted that the famous Soviet quality mark could serve as a guarantee of the absence of any manifestation of marriage in civilian products.
But times have changed. The strict control system was replaced by the market, when enterprises had to follow the path of “finding special reserves” using a minimum number of specialists, volumes of materials and almost total disregard for the system for assessing the quality of finished products. Little by little, the concept of "Chinese quality" began to take hold in relation to many Russian-made goods. The defense industry still kept its reputation, but over time, even here, manifestations of a negligent approach to the production and quality control of products began to be observed. The authorities, for obvious reasons, began to sound the alarm and demand clarification as to why the manufacturers end up issuing products that often need revision.
It was here that Anatoly Serdyukov's opinion was voiced. He, being the Minister of Defense, announced that often those people who are called upon to monitor the quality of products in the defense industry turn into people dependent on the benefits of this area. In other words, the Ministry of Defense sends servicemen to work on monitoring the quality of military-technical products, whom the management of enterprises "greases" so that they can be controlled without much zeal. Some of the controllers were "helped" by additional funding, others were able to receive housing and paid vouchers through enterprises. In general, some call this a fair remuneration for labor, while others call it an obvious corruption component in relation to both the enterprises of the military-industrial complex themselves and those very military representatives of the generation of the market economy. And it is no secret that many controllers, in fact, fell into a rather significant dependence on the enterprise and, not wanting to lose their warm place, turned a blind eye to many things: from the notorious loose nuts and uncooked seams according to the standard to an outright substitution of some materials for others - cheaper and substandard.
After such a system of "control" was revealed, the Ministry of Defense came up with a proposal to follow the path of reducing the number of military representatives. Was this a smart decision? It could be if the remaining 7, 5 thousand servicemen in the military acceptance system were made to understand that if they are given a job by the Ministry of Defense, then all "gifts" from enterprises will be considered as open participation in corrupt deals leading to a decrease in the country's defense capability. And in addition to such explanations, it would not be superfluous to make sure that for purely financial reasons, military receivers do not have a desire to take vouchers, bonuses, additional rations and other material benefits from controlled authorities. But, as you can see, no one explained anything to the inspectors, or they explained it very badly … In general, after the reduction in the number of servicemen forming the military acceptance system, there was no increase in the quality of products. It's just that, let's say, there are more blank spots on the control map of the defense industry sphere due to the discovered undersupply. In other words, the specialists who remained after the layoff did not work for three, and the industrialists were not particularly upset about that …
Now, as noted at the beginning of the material, it is planned to return the previous number of military acceptance. And again we can say that such an initiative will be beneficial only if the military representatives feel the full responsibility of their work, as those who worked in similar positions in Soviet times felt it in their time. It cannot be said that in those days no one took a bribe for contemplating the work of enterprises through their fingers in terms of controlling activities, but the level of responsibility was much higher, as evidenced by the quality of Soviet military equipment. Therefore, before restoring the previous state of military acceptance, it would be worthwhile to carefully consider the criteria for the responsibility of the inspectors themselves in the event that they let a marriage go into circulation. Indeed, so far in the entire history of the creation of Russian military equipment, among which low-quality units began to appear more and more often, there have been no resonant cases of bringing military receivers to justice. So far, everyone has received indulgences, at best writing off defects in the quality system to the enterprise when the equipment has already reached the customers. In general, they controlled the quality, as is often the case, retroactively: the tank refuses to shoot, and the rocket refuses to fly after deliveries to foreign buyers or to his native Ministry of Defense - the controller immediately has a paper, according to which he checked everything on time, but only in connection with an unexpected attack of illness did not manage to report to the management, because he was hospitalized in a semi-conscious state … Something like that …
Let's hope that the kind of rollback of the reform in the field of military acceptance being undertaken is not a hasty, but a thoughtful and balanced decision, which will go to the benefit of strengthening the country's defense capability and restoring the significance of the name of Russian weapons.
