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Mass draft evasion threatens Russian army By Renfrey Clarke MOSCOW -- Of some 200 reserve officers due to be drafted into military service after graduating this year from Moscow higher education institutions, the military authorities succeeded in enlisting only 13 between May and August. Of these, only one reported to his unit. Among potential conscripts as a whole, the proportion evading the draft is at least one in eight. Tens of thousands of young Russians are preferring life on the run to inadequate food, brutal treatment by officers and older troops, and the chance of dying in a border war. Since late in 1994, armed forces chiefs and the Russian government have been trying to reinforce and extend the conscription system. On October 1 new military service legislation, adopted by the parliament in April, came into effect. For nearly 200,000 conscripts, barracks life will not end this autumn as they had hoped. The standard term of service has been lengthened from 18 months to two years. At times, with comic effect, the government and its supporters have tried to increase the psychological pressure on young men to comply with the draft. On October 10, Alexy II, the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, issued a call to draft-age youth -- or in his words, "Orthodox warriors" -- to front up at the induction centres. "The time has come for you to join the army ranks to serve the motherland, to protect and defend it from external and internal enemies and strengthen its might", the Patriarch was quoted as saying. Perhaps sensing that this appeal would leave its targets unmoved, he went on to promise, "Army service will aid your spiritual maturity". The campaign to boost the number of draftees is intended to reverse a decline in the overall size of the Russian armed forces during the past few years, bringing units up to near-full strength. The previously declared goal of creating a smaller, fully professional military machine has not been officially abandoned. But for now, government leaders have clearly decided, there is no substitute for a huge conscript army. Cost cutting How the extra troops are to be fed, when those currently in the ranks are often half-starved, is a question the authorities have done their best to dodge. Also in the too hard basket is another quandary -- in a society where few laws are being enforced consistently, how can people be made to serve? Russia's armed forces have been a prime target of finance ministry cost-cutters ever since the beginning of capitalist "reform" in 1992. For some years, the need to operate on a lower level of funding was reflected in Russian military doctrine. Instead of relying on sheer size, the army was to place its trust in mobility, rapid reaction and the use of sophisticated weapons by highly trained troops. The total number of service personnel was to fall from about 2 million to 1.5 million. Conscripts were to be replaced increasingly by contract soldiers, paid a regular wage instead of the conscript's pocket-money of about US$2 a month. Military spending was cut. The development and supplying of new weapons largely ceased. Food supplies deteriorated, with some garrisons exhausting even their emergency rations. Without the money to pay electricity bills, military bases at times had their power cut off. Wages ceased to be paid on time and the pay rates of non-conscripts were allowed to slide to the point where some officers were working part-time as security guards and taxi drivers. Other officers preferred to top up their incomes by thieving military property. When four cadets starved to death in a naval base in the Russian Far East in 1993, it was because senior officers had been stealing and selling food stocks. Understandably, officer-school graduates began doubting the wisdom of carrying on with a military career. The resignation rate of junior officers soared. Facing an acute shortage of lower-level unit commanders, army leaders began demanding to be allowed to tap into the store of reserve officers -- in particular, the many thousands of tertiary graduates who had taken military training courses as part of their higher education. Previously, such graduates had been placed automatically on the officer reserve list, without being made to serve. But late in 1994 Russian President Boris Yeltsin signed a decree making them liable for call-up. Shortly after this decision, heavy fighting erupted in Chechnya. By early this year the ineffectiveness of the Russian army as a fighting force had become undeniable. Morale within the officer corps plunged, and a sense of desperate resentment mounted. A key source of dissatisfaction was the fact that as a result of dwindling numbers of draftees, most army units were heavily under-strength; the English-language Moscow Tribune reported in February that ground units were 50% short of optimum troop levels. Hiring more contract soldiers was ruled out for economic reasons; army accountants reported that the cost of maintaining a professional soldier was four to five times that of keeping a conscript. Army commanders began lobbying the parliament, demanding that the call-up be tightened and the period of service extended. The lobbying was not particularly skilful, but did not need to be; most parliamentary deputies, especially Communists and right-wing nationalists, were easily persuaded that the decay of the armed forces was an outrage needing to be fought to the last 18-year-old. Only the opposition "democrats" showed scepticism. On April 7, general staff chief Mikhail Kolesnikov made an impassioned speech to a closed session of the State Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament. By an overwhelming majority, the Duma then passed amendments to the military service legislation. As well as extending the length of service, the package revoked most of the exemptions and deferments which had earlier applied to students and to potential draftees with one child, elderly parents, or academic degrees. Opinion polls later showed the new provisions to be broadly unpopular. Attitudes in the Duma changed accordingly, and the lower-house deputies eventually voted to restore a range of exemptions. But these efforts to moderate the legislation were rejected by the parliament's upper house, prompting bitter statements from critics of official policy. "The recruits have nothing to eat and wear torn boots", reformist deputy Ella Pamfilova told a press conference early in October. "There is no sense in filling up the barracks with additional hungry soldiers." Draft dodgers Meanwhile, young Russians are deciding in droves that if the state wants to put them in uniform, it will have to catch them first. Pacifist organisations and army sources agree that more than 25,000 young men have dodged the draft in each of the past few years. The risks of prosecution are low, with fewer than 800 cases brought in 1994; overwhelmed with demands that they catch real criminals, police have little time to chase reluctant soldiers. The efforts this year to draft reserve officers have brought the military authorities a particularly severe rebuff. Only a small minority of those being sought have complied. Of reservists in Moscow, military sources admitted in August, more than 85% had managed to avoid receiving their draft notices. The recruiters will find it impossible to reach more than a small fraction of the target, set by Yeltsin in his 1994 decree, of bringing 36,000 reserve officers into service by next year. With a massive number of officers successfully practising non-compliance, prospective rank and file troops now have even less reason to front up at the induction centres. Military conscription in Russia is therefore at risk of losing all credibility, as the system of enforcement is swamped by a sea of defiant youth. Unless the government makes an extraordinary show of ruthlessness -- at grave political expense -- the country is likely before long to have the world's first voluntary draft. That prospect does not seem to worry most Russians. To the bulk of the population, the switch to the "market system" has brought little apart from poverty and insecurity. Now that the power of the new capitalist state to defend itself is being eroded, the notes of popular alarm are less than deafening.