By Renfrey Clarke
MOSCOW — There is nothing so capable of persuading "reformist" Russian President Boris Yeltsin to announce reforms as the prospect of being thrown out of his job. Since campaigning began in earnest for the June 16 election, attention-getting initiatives have issued from the president's office almost every week.
One announcement that ought to arouse particular suspicion is Yeltsin's May 16 decree ordering the abolition, over the next four years, of military conscription. This is being presented as the first step in a long-promised military reform aimed at giving Russia a "combat-ready, professional army". An accompanying decree instructs military authorities to cease sending conscripts to reinforce units in such "hot spots" as Chechnya.
Most commentators see these moves as an attempt by the president, who is being pushed hard in the election campaign by Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF) leader Gennady Zyuganov, to rope in the youth vote. Surveys show that Yeltsin is considerably more popular than Zyuganov among Russian citizens aged between 18 and 25. However, young Russians until now have shown little desire to take part in elections. Only about 35% of citizens under 25 voted in the parliamentary polls last December.
By promising an end to the draft, Yeltsin clearly aimed to give young people a positive reason to turn out to the voting stations, and to give him their support.
The horrors of the Russian draft must be close to unique. Even if draftees are not sent off to a shooting war, they are traditionally subjected to beating and humiliation by older troops.
During their two-year term of service they are paid only a small allowance. Food is often inadequate. The official cost of a soldier's daily ration is the equivalent of US$1.85; out of these meagre supplies, racketeering officers occasionally take an extra cut. Since 1992 there have been at least six cases of conscripts starving to death.
The idea of ending the call-up is popular not only with potential draftees but also with their relatives. Nevertheless, this reform also carries significant political risks.
It would be foolish not to consider the impact on the officer corps. Press reports suggest that most military officers are not hostile in principle to the idea of all-volunteer armed forces.
But the officers are concerned that such reforms should not lower the status of the armed forces or limit their own career prospects. Senior military leaders understand that the price would be steep, and are deeply sceptical about the ability, or willingness, of the government to meet the costs involved.
Officers are already bitter at drastic falls in the size and battle-readiness of the armed forces. After big cuts in earlier years, the buying power of military appropriations in the 1996 state budget declined once again, by a reported 14%. The total number of officers and troops — spread between the Defence Ministry, the Interior Ministry, the Federal Border Guard Service and other agencies — has fallen by more than half since 1989, to a current figure of 1.7 million. Government plans foresee further cuts of 400,000.
To many officers, Yeltsin's promise of a relatively swift end to the call-up can mean only the further collapse of the armed forces, and of their own career prospects.
The Russian armed forces currently have about 270,000 so-called contract soldiers — in Russian, kontraktniki — including about 100,000 women. The cost of maintaining a kontraktnik comes to about five times the cost of keeping a conscript.
Unless the current military budget were to increase several times over, the number of enlisted personnel in an all-volunteer military machine would have to be cut drastically. The armed forces are already top-heavy with officers, and promotion is slow. For most officers, further big cuts in troop numbers would end any chance of reaching high rank.
Another consideration is that kontraktniki often have families, for whom housing must be provided. The armed forces already have at least 120,000 "homeless" officers, without their own apartments. For these officers and their dependents, the cost of an all-volunteer army would be extra years in crowded barracks.
When military officers discuss their misgivings about all-volunteer armed forces, of course, they usually stress the impact on the fighting effectiveness of their units. Here, their experiences with volunteer personnel have often been discouraging.
Civilian unemployment has not reached the levels where military recruiters have an abundance of volunteers from whom to pick. As a result, the quality of the kontraktniki tends to be low. Many lack the mental gifts to carry out complex orders, or to use weapons safely. Others are alcoholics, or criminals attracted by the chance to sell off military property. In some cases — as civilians in Chechnya can testify — army volunteers are psychopaths looking to torture and kill with impunity.
In Chechnya, the Moscow daily Segodnya reported on May 17, units made up mainly of kontraktniki are often the least disciplined and battle worthy. The 73 federal troops who died in a much-publicised ambush in mid-April, Izvestia noted on May 18, were volunteer soldiers who had neglected elementary precautions.
Yeltsin probably reflected, however, that among military officers and their families, he had little support left to lose.
In the parliamentary elections of December 1993, military personnel are reputed to have voted heavily for the Liberal Democratic Party of ultra-nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky. In a survey quoted by the English-language Moscow Times on April 6 this year, military officers indicated that the politician in whom they had "most confidence" was Zyuganov, followed by Zhirinovsky. Yeltsin came in a distant sixth.
If Yeltsin wins the elections, he will enter his second term facing economic depression, financial turmoil and rising unemployment — while relying for protection on armed forces that have never liked him much, and now have reason to like him even less.
The promise of an end to the draft, meanwhile, should not cause 18-year-old men to gasp with relief. Among media commentators, the general view is that Yeltsin's decree will not be put into effect. It can be rejected by the parliament, where conventional military thinkers, and the president's KPRF opponents, hold strong positions.
If not cancelled by the parliament, the decree is likely to vanish into the same limbo as a good deal of other legislation. It will not be demonstratively flouted, but will not be implemented either. That, no doubt, will be as Yeltsin intended all along.
However, the fact that it is Yeltsin who has been able to seize on and exploit the unpopularity of the draft — and dishonestly at that — is simply shocking. Where have the Communists been while young men have bitterly contemplated (and occasionally protested against) their two years of brutalisation?
In an absurd political inversion, the Communist opposition is likely to have the votes of the military establishment, and Yeltsin those of the youth. Whoever wins, the situation within the armed forces will grow more chaotic, and the officers more responsive to appeals for tough authoritarian solutions to the ills of society. Meanwhile, young men will still be herded into the induction centres.