By Renfrey Clarke
MOSCOW — It could have been any of a series of meetings called in recent times by the outlawed Communist Party. The venue was kept secret until the last moment. Would-be participants were required to appear on the morning of February 20 outside the Central Lenin Museum, from where they were directed to the offices of the Proletarsky Regional Soviet. In the auditorium they found numerous leaders of "conservative" political groups: Gennady Zyuganov, Albert Makashov, Viktor Anpilov and others.
However, there was something different about this meeting — something that drew alarmed commentary from the liberal press. The gathering had been called by the All-Army Assembly of Officers, and most of the 250 participants were soldiers in uniform.
Formed in January 1992, the assembly was outlawed in September by defence minister General Pavel Grachev. Military personnel were threatened with dishonourable discharges if they attended the February 20 meeting, with the result that many of those who registered did so under assumed names.
Grachev had banned the assembly, and the assembly replied in the same spirit. A call was adopted for the government to resign, and it was resolved that the materials of a self-appointed "Court of Officers' Honour" would be forwarded to the general prosecutor with a demand that the defence minister be put on trial.
The fears of liberal journalists were heightened by the knowledge that the officers who had braved Grachev's threats spoke for a broad swathe of armed forces opinion.
Military sociologists quoted in Moscow News reported that as far back as November 1992 only 19% of officers supported the Russian government, while 56% opposed its line. Studies in mid-1992 indicated that at least one-third of the officer corps would like to see the USSR restored, and that about two-thirds would welcome the introduction in Russia of a military-based regime. Seventy-five per cent of officers expressed a preference for the state economic sector.
Even officers who were not dismayed by the "collapse of Communism" have had plenty to turn them against the Russian government. The retreat of the Russian military from Eastern Europe and the Baltic states has brought many officers and their families back to live in primitive conditions in overcrowded barracks. Traditionally, Soviet officers received relatively generous salaries and provisions; now, real incomes in the armed services, like most areas of the Russian state machine, have slipped badly.
Military officers have few openings for earning money legitimately on the side, at the same time as they are often in charge of valuable equipment and materials. The illegal sale of goods and services has become rampant, even among senior generals. On February 22 Grachev angrily denounced corruption in the armed services. He revealed that 3000 officers, including two regional commanders, had been disciplined for engaging in illicit commerce; 46 generals and other officers faced prosecution.
The effects on morale of poor housing, low pay and widespread corruption have been catastrophic. But in many units of the Russian Army, these are only some of the factors eroding the officers' spirit.
Large numbers of Russian troops remain stationed outside Russia. Often, they are uncomfortably close observers of violent ethnic and political conflicts, and at times they are actual participants. The relationship of the Russian military to these struggles is poorly formulated at government level, and is usually incomprehensible to officers on the spot.
Confused and embittered, such officers often react by going into business — selling weapons and ammunition to the contending sides. Or, they may become recruits to hardline nationalist currents and to bodies looking to "resolve" national conflicts through the forcible restoration of the USSR. Many of the two dozen or so officers' organisations in Russia — including the best known, the Union of Officers — have this Stalino-chauvinist character.
Organisations such as the Union of Officers are only semi-legal, and do not speak for the armed forces hierarchy. Even now, the possibility of concerted intervention in politics by the existing armed forces command rarely features in political debate. Nevertheless, the diminishing ability of the government to implement its programs, together with the growing assertiveness of the Russian Federation's regions and republics, is bringing Russians face to face with the question: at what point will the armed forces act in line with their self-image as the defenders of national integrity?
In the days after the convening of the All-Army Officers Assembly, President Boris Yeltsin acknowledged implicitly that his administration faces a threat from the officer corps.
In an interview timed for release in the armed forces newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda on February 23 — the Day of the Defenders of the Fatherland — Yeltsin called on the military to support his economic measures and to help preserve stability in society. He also warned that there were forces seeking to draw the military into political battles. "Somebody", he told the paper, "is trying to play the army card".
On February 23 Yeltsin cancelled an appearance at which he was to lay a wreath on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. That afternoon he was the target of one of the larger political demonstrations in the last two years, as about 20,000 people marched through the centre of Moscow carrying communist and nationalist banners. The demonstrators included considerable numbers of people in military uniform.
As a political force, the Russian officer corps can be expected to oppose Yeltsin's efforts to privatise large and medium-sized enterprises, and on this basis may well find itself in a bloc with the is unlikely ever to be formalised, and in any case will only be temporary and limited.
The officers' closest affinities are not with workers, but with the managers of defence plants in the so-called "military-industrial complex". Like the armed forces, defence enterprises have been hit hard by the Yeltsin administration's cuts in military spending.
More fundamentally, the genuine Russian left and bodies like the assembly stand directly opposed on basic questions of democratic rights and popular rule.
This emerged starkly when participants in the assembly's February 20 meeting voted to endorse Colonel-General Achalov for the post of defence minister. Moscow News commented on this choice: "Obviously, many subscribe to [Achalov's] statement that a Third World War is raging in which Zionists are ruining the country on instructions from the USA, and that only the military can save the country."
As this suggests, a government dominated by the armed forces would not in any sense represent an advance for Russian workers. The current leaders of the military opposition are not the first opponents the Russian working class needs to take on in its struggle for a humane and democratic society, but they are not much further along the track.