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STATEMENTS BY THE MINISTER OF DEFENCE ABOUT ABOLITION OF CONSCRIPTION: NEVER SAY NEVER … BUT FOR ALL DEMOCRATIC OPPOSITION THE ABOLITION OF CONSCRIPTION SLAVERY SHOULD BECOME THE QUESTION NUMBER ONE OF THE POLITICAL AGENDA
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The conscription for the military service will never be abolished in Russia, the Minister of Defence Sergey Ivanov said. He said there isn't a task to pass completely to the contract system. The mixed system of recruitment for the armed forces has been chosen in Russia. At the same time the minister said that since 2008 the military service period will be reduced from two years to one year (Radio station "Ekho Moskvy", June 2, 2004)
Statement by Nikolaj Khramov, secretary of the "Russian Radicals"
Moscow, June 2, 2004
In this country, the conscription for the military service will never be abolished. The strength of the armed forces will be maintained at today's level - about one million people. The service period will be reduced to one year, but not now, but when Putin's term of office expires - in 2008. Therefore, in order to maintain this strength of the army, the compulsory military service should become really general. This is the way, according to yesterday's statements by the Minister of Defence Ivanov, the Kremlin is going to deal with the urn where the military reform rests in peace. The state can't afford to support a professional army, the minister added.
The political position expressed by the minister Ivanov, being deeply anti-state in its essence, dooms the Russian armed forces to slow and painful death. But he should better remember the name of the movie with participation of James Bond. The truth is that the citizens of Russia, whose overwhelming majority, according to all without exception public-opinion polls, supports the immediate abolition of conscription slavery, can not and do not want to support the existence of million strong army of semi-dystrophical slaves under command of the parquet generals who till now are preparing even not for the last war but for the war before last. Generals and clerks suppose - and draftees have at their disposal an effective instrument: the possibility to concsientiously object and to choose the alternative civilian service instead of the military service, leaving the generals alone with their grandiose plans.
However, even the "most civilian" alternative service by definition continues to remain the same thing as military service: a legalized form of modern slavery which should be certainly abolished. And the public opinion of the country is as much united concerning this question as the consolidated position of today's ruling political class opposes it. I'm convinced that exactly on this question there will happen the first serious collision between the Russian society and the Russian ruling official class which till now, alas, enjoys the indifferent love of voters.
But in order that this collision may have a peaceful and constitutional character as far as possible, we should do an impossible but the only remaining thing: the all-Russian referendum "from below". Certainly, this task becomes extremely complicated after the forthcoming entry into force of the new Putin's law against referenda, approved today by the Duma in the first reading. But even in these conditions this task continues to remain theoretically feasible under condition that we will be able to form a wide national coalition of all parties, public movements, nongovernmental organizations which will set the task to abolish the conscription slavery in our country. I'm convinced that just this task should become the question number one in the political agenda of not only radicals, but of all democratic opposition starting with the committees of soldiers' mothers.
Statement by Nikolaj Khramov, secretary of the "Russian Radicals"
Moscow, June 2, 2004
In this country, the conscription for the military service will never be abolished. The strength of the armed forces will be maintained at today's level - about one million people. The service period will be reduced to one year, but not now, but when Putin's term of office expires - in 2008. Therefore, in order to maintain this strength of the army, the compulsory military service should become really general. This is the way, according to yesterday's statements by the Minister of Defence Ivanov, the Kremlin is going to deal with the urn where the military reform rests in peace. The state can't afford to support a professional army, the minister added.
The political position expressed by the minister Ivanov, being deeply anti-state in its essence, dooms the Russian armed forces to slow and painful death. But he should better remember the name of the movie with participation of James Bond. The truth is that the citizens of Russia, whose overwhelming majority, according to all without exception public-opinion polls, supports the immediate abolition of conscription slavery, can not and do not want to support the existence of million strong army of semi-dystrophical slaves under command of the parquet generals who till now are preparing even not for the last war but for the war before last. Generals and clerks suppose - and draftees have at their disposal an effective instrument: the possibility to concsientiously object and to choose the alternative civilian service instead of the military service, leaving the generals alone with their grandiose plans.
However, even the "most civilian" alternative service by definition continues to remain the same thing as military service: a legalized form of modern slavery which should be certainly abolished. And the public opinion of the country is as much united concerning this question as the consolidated position of today's ruling political class opposes it. I'm convinced that exactly on this question there will happen the first serious collision between the Russian society and the Russian ruling official class which till now, alas, enjoys the indifferent love of voters.
But in order that this collision may have a peaceful and constitutional character as far as possible, we should do an impossible but the only remaining thing: the all-Russian referendum "from below". Certainly, this task becomes extremely complicated after the forthcoming entry into force of the new Putin's law against referenda, approved today by the Duma in the first reading. But even in these conditions this task continues to remain theoretically feasible under condition that we will be able to form a wide national coalition of all parties, public movements, nongovernmental organizations which will set the task to abolish the conscription slavery in our country. I'm convinced that just this task should become the question number one in the political agenda of not only radicals, but of all democratic opposition starting with the committees of soldiers' mothers.
