Suvorov The Liberators My Life in the Soviet Army (1981)

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where will it start its check-up, what is it interested in? Before everything
else comes the ideological state of the troops - are they true believers, or
has the decay already set in? How are you to check
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whether the bourgeois, or the maoist, or the revanchist, the nationalist or
the zionist or any other band of propaganda exerts any influence upon the
Soviet warrior? It is very simple. First, the commission must inspect the
whole camp. Are there enough portraits of the Party and Government
leaders, are there enough placards and slogans, is there enough visual
agitation in general. What shape is the club in? The room devoted to the
glorification of battle? How is the Lenin room in each company, in what
shape are each company's paper and satirical news-sheet? And what
about each platoon's daily 'battle leaflet'?
After all this, one must discover what a soldier does in his free time.
What is he doing? What is he thinking? And that is quite simple too: a
concert and sports competition are laid on for the commission. Every-
thing is in order! There is more evidence - cups, pennants, banners. This
one is for sport, that one for amateur activities in the arts. Well, things are
clearly all right there, but how do they stand with internal order, and with
the observance of military regulations? Here again, there are no
problems. Feast your eyes: fences are painted, paths are swept, windows
are washed, beds are made and perfectly ranged in line, it would be quite
impossible to arrange them any better.
Believe me, if any regimental commander succeeds in giving a better
account concerning all these points than his colleagues, and in addition
manages to hide all crimes and disciplinary offences, which are
happening every day, his promotion is assured. The most important
consideration is to be able to hide all the unattractive aspects, but
exercises and manoeuvres will not be taken into consideration.
In order to win a victory in this interminable competition, every
commander, from company commander upwards, must have painters,
artists and sportsmen, preferably of a semi-professional level. A special
term has been invented in the army for these craftsmen, they are called
'dead souls', because although they are registered as gun-layers, loaders,
radio-men, etcetera, they are nevertheless occupied with quite other
matters. Some are concocting newspapers day and night. Some are
strumming guitars, some are defending their company's honour in sport.
According to their particular qualifications, the craftsmen are divided into
categories - at company, battalion, regimental or divisional level. For
example, in every district there are special sports battalions, sub-divided
into light athletics companies, basket-ball platoons, or even high jump
platoons.
The struggle to acquire craftsmen goes on permanently between
commanders at all levels. All lower-ranking officers hide their best
painters and artists from the higher-ranking officers who, in their turn,
haunt the various clubs and sports rooms hoping to grab the best
craftsmen for themselves. It is open war, with all the rules and
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methods, the appropriate unwritten laws and traditions. There's enough of
it to fill a novel. Direct exchanges also exist, although these take place
more often between independent commanders: 'Give me a weight-lifter
and a guitarist, and I'll give you a house-painter and a painter,' or,
'Comrade Colonel, don't give me a bad mark for that exercise' (this kind
of bargain would be struck via a middleman from another division) 'and
I'll give you a sculptor! He'll make a model of anyone you like for the
officers' mess in your division. Lenin or Andropov, anyone you wish!'
All craftsmen work on the piece rate system. The principle of material
self-interest is sacred. Payment alters depending on the category.
Sometimes it happens this way: 'If you become an Olympic champion -
we'll give you the rank of senior lieutenant!' And anyway what does it
cost the Defence Minister to give away one or two additional little stars?
One footballer even attained the rank of major-general without serving a
single day in the army, although it must be admitted that the footballer's
name in that instance was Yuriy Brezhnev.
In the Kiev military district, at the tank works, the repairing of
thousands of private cars was organised. The district chiefs were filling
their pockets with millions of roubles, and the craftsmen who were
repairing these cars were given leave every evening, and everybody was
happy, generals, craftsmen and consumers. The quality of the work was
excellent and it is a pity that the shutters were eventually put up. Now
there is nowhere in the whole of Kiev to have a Zhiguli car repaired.
Even if the craftsmen had not been paid at all, their work would still
have been highly efficient, because to swill all day or to hit a tennis ball
about is much more pleasant than digging deep trenches in the heat and
the dirt; similarly, drawing a satirical paper in a warm store-room is much
more pleasant than changing tank-tracks in the frost. That at least is
established fact. In addition, all craftsmen receive endless periods of
leave and holidays, all at the expense of others, of course. It is from this
that the decay of an army springs (it is not the only cause, and certainly
not the most important, but it is one of the basic ones). Let us say for the
sake of argument that a drunk, dirty, scruffy soldier is walking along the
street. Notice how all the patrols stand aside: it turns out that he is the
personal cabinet-maker to the divisional commander. And that one over
there, who is also drunk, turns out to be the personal workman of the [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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