QUESTIONS: 1. The main trends in the formation and development of the military school in Russia.

2. Military education reform is an essential part of Russia's military reform*.

* See also the article by Lieutenant General Anatoly Sidorenko, Head of the Department of Military Education at the Russian Ministry of Defense, published in this issue of the magazine.

Thanks to the efforts of the great commanders and advanced officers of the Russian and Soviet armies and navies, our country has its own rich-traditioned national school of training and education of troops. These traditions have not lost their significance in our time. Their critical reflection and creative use in modern conditions contribute to the successful resolution of the tasks facing the Armed Forces.

1

The development of the Russian military school is inextricably linked to the history of Russia's military organization. There are several main stages in its development (see the table).

The origins of the Russian military training school can be traced back to ancient times. Initially, the process of summarizing and transmitting military training and education was spontaneous and passed down from generation to generation through both oral and practical examples. With the advent of writing, the issues of military training were reflected in chronicles, teachings, state acts, as well as military-historical and literary works.

With the development of the state and its military organization, the elements of the national school of military training were reflected in regulations, manuals, and instructions. Among them are the "Code of Service" of 1556, the "Boyar Decree on the Stationary and Guard Service" of 1571, the "Military Book" of 1607, the "Code of Military, Cannon, and Other Matters Related to Military Service" of 1621, the "Doctrine and Cunning of the Military Structure of Infantry Men" of 1674, and others.

The main idea of these documents is the need for regular training and education of the troops. The regulations required soldiers to serve their sovereign honestly, to know their place in the ranks and in battle, and to be willing to give their lives "for their comrades."

In the 18th century, Russia created favorable conditions for the development of a progressive national school of military training. This development began in the "amusing" regiments of Peter the Great. The methods and techniques of training and education in these regiments became the foundation for the training of the army that was established in Russia on the eve of the Great Northern War.

During the years of the Great Northern War, Russia's military school made significant progress in its development, particularly in terms of practice. The content of field tactical training was developed, the responsibilities of commanders in training and educating their subordinates were specified, the need for a differentiated approach to training young recruits and older soldiers was identified, and the importance of continuous combat training was comprehensively established, with the primary goal of teaching soldiers "how to act in combat."

By establishing military educational institutions and thus laying the foundation for the training of national officer cadres (essentially the Russian military school), Peter I raised the question of their role in the army in a new way. While European armies viewed officer cadres as functional elements of the exercise mechanism, Peter I saw their purpose in a different light, assigning them the primary responsibility of training and educating soldiers.

The development of the Russian military training school in those years was inextricably linked to the activities of Peter I's closest associates: A. Menshikov, A. Golovin, B. Sheremetev, A. Repnin, P. Apraksin, I. Buturlin, D. Golitsyn, M. Golitsyn, P. Gordon, F. Lefort, A. Vende, and others.

The result of theoretical research and combat experience was the "Military Charter" of 1716 - the greatest achievement of the Russian military school of the XVIII century. He did not cancel the previously used means and techniques of training troops, but, based on them, developed the training system in relation to new conditions. Thus, the process of preparing the army acquired a clear order and began even before the arrival of recruits in combat regiments.

According to the verdict of the Military Collegium, "officers who have accepted recruits must immediately swear them in," "so that they do not run away, they must be held accountable," "then, after combining them with the garrison soldiers, they must be assigned to squads and companies, and they must be taught soldiering exercises and military regulations, so that they do not arrive in the regiments as mere peasants, but as ordinary soldiers." Officers with combat experience were selected as mentors, but they were not fit to serve in combat regiments due to their wounds.

After Peter I's death in the 1730s and 1740s, negative trends began to prevail in the training of the Russian army. The new regulations and instructions prepared by the "temporary rulers" Osterman and Biron reduced the content of army training compared to Peter's requirements.

It was not until the 1960s that trends began to emerge in the Russian military school, characterized by the revival and further development of Peter the Great's national traditions. This process was associated with the names of Russia's greatest politicians and military leaders, including Peter Rumyantsev, Grigory Potemkin, Alexander Suvorov, Sergei Vorontsov, Mikhail Kutuzov, Otto Weismann, Pavel Panin, Nikolai Saltykov, and others. General Field Marshal Peter Rumyantsev was the first to establish himself as a successor to Russia's military traditions. His ideas about mentoring in the army, continuous training of troops in peacetime, and the "moral element" in education have become part of the history of Russia's military school. These progressive trends were further developed by Grigory Potemkin, who became the President of the Military Collegium in 1784. In his 1788 instructions, Potemkin stated, "A soldier is an honest name, and the first ranks are also referred to as soldiers."

A.V. Suvorov played a significant role in the development of the Russian military school. Like Peter the Great and P. Rumyantsev, he based the training process on the unique characteristics of the Russian army as a national army, emphasizing the qualities that could be developed in Russian soldiers by nurturing their natural abilities and traits. A.V. Suvorov pioneered the creation of a comprehensive training and education system, demonstrating the direct correlation between combat effectiveness and the training and morale of troops.

Changes in the system of military education are also associated with this period. Thanks to the activities of P. Shuvalov, I. Betskoy, M. Lomonosov, M. Kutuzov, L. Kraft, D. Anichkov, and N. Novikov, a new system of closed military educational institutions was formed: cadet corps, where education was based on a planned and organized approach.

The development of the Russian military school in the second half of the 19th century and the early 20th century is inextricably linked to the reforms in all areas of public life in the Russian state and the military reforms carried out by Field Marshal General D. A. Milyutin. Russia transitioned from cadet corps to military gymnasiums and progymnasiums, cadet schools, and specialized schools, and expanded the network of military academies. In 1863, the Main Directorate of Military Educational Institutions was established.

The improvement of the theory and practice of military training was associated with the activities of M.I. Dragomirov, M.D. Skobelev, I.V. Gurko, G.A. Leer, and S.O. Makarov. The reforms of the military school had a positive impact on the Russian officer corps and the system of military training and education, but the political reaction of the 1880s significantly affected the effectiveness of these reforms. The First World War further highlighted the contradictions in military training.

The Soviet military school went through a complex and contradictory process of understanding the experience of Russian military science and finding new ways to train troops.

Its development was based on V.I. Lenin's theoretical and methodological principles of the class approach and the leading role of the masses.

Undoubtedly, the progressive theoretical principles were not always implemented without distortion, and the military school created a clear-cut negative attitude towards the enemies of the revolution, which was further reinforced by the political education system.

The main elements of the military school during this period were universal military training of the people, and the training of soldiers in active, reserve, and spare units. A network of military educational institutions (courses, schools, and academies) was established to train officers.

The Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945 was a severe test for the national military training system.

The front continuously required more and more trained human resources. In view of this, the reserves were prepared through universal military training and other defense and sports organizations, training of military personnel in internal districts, reserve (reserve-troop) units, combat training in the active army.

In the shortest possible time, military educational institutions were relocated from the west to the east, and the educational process was restructured. Over the years of the war, more than 2 million command and political personnel were trained.

Despite the victorious end of the war, the international situation of the Soviet Union remained tense. In the new conditions, based on a scientific understanding of the experience of the past war, attempts were made to determine the goals and objectives of the Soviet military school, to develop a system of principles for training and educating soldiers, and to identify the didactic nature of forms and methods of training. This was the focus of the works of A. G. Bazanov, L. G. Beskrovny, K. P. Belsky, S. M. Gerasimov, and A. E. Suknovalov.

In the 1960s and 1980s, the army underwent significant changes in both technical (the troops were equipped with nuclear missile weapons) and intellectual terms. In 1966, only one in four officers had a higher or specialized education, but by 1980, more than 50% of officers had a higher education. The educational level of soldiers and sergeants also increased significantly.

The current period of the military school's development is characterized by certain internal contradictions, the sometimes one-sided development of certain aspects of military science, and the discrepancy between the material resources allocated by the state to the military school and the requirements for training troops.

All of this required fundamental changes in the system of the national military school and its component, military education.

2

The reorganization of the military education system is an essential component of Russia's military reform. This necessity is driven by a combination of factors: Firstly, the network of military educational institutions was almost twice as large as the actual needs of the Armed Forces, and secondly, the existing mechanism for determining the number of officers to be trained has become inefficient and ineffective. Additionally, there is a lack of coordinated and cost-effective utilization of all sources for replenishing the officer corps, including the capabilities of civilian higher education institutions. Thirdly, the system of training reserve officers now needs to be reoriented from quantitative to qualitative indicators.

The Ministry of Defense has already developed a comprehensive program for improving the military education system. This program specifies the main parameters of activities in this area, primarily related to the reform of the military education system. The goal is to maximize the efficiency of all major sources of recruitment for the officer corps while minimizing costs.

This goal is expected to be achieved in two stages between 1998 and 2005. In the first stage (1998-2000), a number of tasks need to be addressed to establish a new military education system. The primary objective is to dynamically optimize the network, capacity, and organizational structure of military educational institutions, reorganize the network of military departments in civilian universities, and conduct their licensing and certification.

A system of criteria has been defined for making decisions regarding a particular university.

First, there is an annual prospective need for officers in the relevant training specialties.

Secondly, the university's capacity (the ability to increase the number of students and the list of available specialties, as well as the availability of unique specialties).

Thirdly, the state of scientific and pedagogical potential (staffing by scientists, opportunities for training).

Fourth, the state and prospects for developing the educational material and technical base.

Finally, fifthly, there are the peculiarities of territorial distribution.

When carrying out organizational and staffing measures, three main conditions must be met. First, the Russian school of officer training must be preserved, strengthened, and developed. Second, the scientific and pedagogical potential must be preserved and improved. Third, the educational material and technical base must be improved in accordance with the requirements of the time, after a thorough analysis of the current state.

By the beginning of 2000, in order to meet the need for training officers for the Armed Forces and other military units, as well as for foreign armies, the network of universities under the Ministry of Defense should take the following form: a system of large, multi-level educational and scientific complexes with a flexible management structure, a well-developed scientific, field, and educational infrastructure, and the capacity to train 1,500 or more students.

Thus, the domestic school of military training has gone through a long and complex process of formation and development. We believe that a thorough analysis of this process will allow us to optimize the training of specialists for the Armed Forces in the current situation and make objective and reasonable predictions about the development of the modern military school.

THE MAIN STAGES OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE RUSSIAN MILITARY SCHOOL

Stages

Time frame

Content

First stage

From the earliest times to the end of the XVII century

It is characterized by the emergence of spontaneous elements of military training

Second stage

XVIII century-first half of the XIX century

The development of military education in Russia, and the military school becomes systemic

Third stage

The second half of the 19th century - the beginning of the 20th century

During this period, the national military school underwent profound transformations, and reforms were carried out in the military education system, as well as the development of scientific foundations for training and education of troops.

Fourth stage

From 1917 to 1990

It is characterized by the creation and development of a socialist military school of training troops based on a class-based approach to social processes and phenomena and the leading role of the Communist Party in military and state construction.

The fifth stage

From 1991 to the present

The distinctive features of this stage are the reforms of the national military school of training troops based on universal human values, the humanization and humanitarization of military education in Russia

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