Maltsev Leonid Semyonovich was born on August 29, 1949 in Belarus.

He graduated from the Kiev Higher Combined Arms Command School in 1971, the Frunze Military Academy in 1979, and the Military Academy of the General Staff of the USSR Armed Forces.

He served as a platoon commander, company commander, battalion commander, regiment commander, division commander, and head of a training center.

In 1992, he was appointed First Deputy Commander of the army, and since 1993-Corps commander. Since 1994-Chief of the General Staff - First Deputy Minister of Defense of the Republic of Belarus.

In 1995, he became the Minister of Defense of the Republic of Belarus.

In March 1997, by a decision of the Council of Defense Ministers of the CIS member States, he was appointed First Deputy Chief of Staff for Coordination of military cooperation of the CIS member States.

Married. Has two children.

We all came out, as they say, from the Soviet overcoat. Therefore, it is not surprising that the very young armies of the newly independent states are very similar to each other in many ways: in equipment and weapons, in the organization of service, in the moral situation in military collectives. We have a lot of similar problems and unresolved issues. In particular, I am convinced that the state of military discipline and law and order cannot but concern the leadership of perhaps all the newly formed Armed Forces of the CIS countries, without exception. I decided to share some observations on this issue with a focus on the experience of working in the army of the Republic of Belarus on the pages of Orientir.

This problem, of course, is far from new, but today it is one of the most acute for military collectives. Its manifestation is also expressed in the form of a destabilizing factor that disrupts the normal functioning of the state military organization.

Speaking in terms of facts, recently there has been an increase in serious crimes related to the theft of weapons and ammunition, the shooting of guard personnel, violations of the statutory rules of relations between military personnel, unauthorized abandonment of a unit with weapons, the distribution and use of drugs, and various types of commercialization of the army sphere. All this negatively affects the image of the army, reduces the prestige of military service.

It would seem that the ongoing military reform should contribute not only to optimizing the structure of the Armed Forces, increasing the combat readiness of units and formations, but also to strengthening the legal and social protection of military personnel, law and order, and military discipline. Nevertheless, the military authorities of the Republic of Belarus recognize that the issue of military discipline in 1998 was more acute than in 1996 - 1997. First of all, the problem of preserving the life and health of military personnel is currently relevant. An analysis of the last year and a half shows that the trend of increasing deaths of military personnel has not been stopped. We regret to speak about the death of people in numbers, percentages, but this should be done out of necessity. The main causes of human losses in peacetime are primarily suicides. As a result, they lost 26.2% of the total number of deaths. A large number of people lost their lives due to non-compliance with safety regulations. For this reason, the Armed Forces of the Republic of Belarus lost 9.3% of all the dead. A serious cause of death is car accidents - 31.0%. We are concerned about the newly emerging increase in the number of premeditated murders - 6.2% (for comparison with the data on the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, these figures are respectively: 26,1%, 18,9%, 16,7%, 13,4%).

In the course of the military reform, serious measures are being taken to restructure the army, while the tasks are being solved not so much by reducing the size of the army, but by creating a new image of the Armed Forces that meets modern realities. We must not forget that the reform is carried out by people and for people, so the issues of strengthening military discipline and law and order as the basis for the life of troops and forces, including during their reform, are of particular importance. What factors regulating the state and problems of maintaining and strengthening military discipline are considered fundamental for the Armed Forces of the Republic of Belarus? In my opinion, they can be classified as follows: economic, social, organizational and managerial, legal, psychological and pedagogical, targeted. Let's look at each group in more detail.

Social factors.

The army remains a social outsider in the eyes of a significant part of society, especially young people. There is a decline in the intellectual potential of conscripts and the transformation of the Armed Forces into an army of "workers and peasants". The formation of the personality of a significant part of young people is negatively affected by the unfavorable situation in the family, neglect of minors, bureaucratic attitude to the needs of young people in the field, separation from work and culture. It seems appropriate to focus the attention of the military authorities on solving the following problems::

Increasing the role of personal integrity of officers, using existing social protection measures. The main task of strengthening military discipline in units of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Belarus (this also applies to the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation) falls on the officer corps. At the same time, in the conditions of semi-impoverished existence, the level of discipline among the officers themselves falls, their attitude to service worsens. The analysis of personal exemplary behavior of officers in maintaining law and order and military discipline reveals an alarming trend of increasing offenses among this category of military personnel, amounting to about 10% annually (in the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation - 5-6%). Some of them engage in entrepreneurship and commerce to the detriment of the interests of the service and contrary to the requirements of the law, while others take the path of abuse. Measures are needed to ensure full social protection of officers, which would avoid the search for additional monetary income. This, in turn, will make it possible to increase the demands on officers for performing their duties. It is time to complete the development of a program of joint actions with the main Military Prosecutor's Office to prevent the penetration of organized crime into the structures of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Belarus;

Staffing of units and divisions with officers. Here, the figures are very similar to the data for the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, where the annual natural decline in officer cadres in recent years has been about 5%. In 1997, it reached the level of 6%, and in 1998 it could have reached 8%. The capacity of military universities is designed to compensate only 5% of the loss of officers. The outflow of young officers did not slow down to affect the state of the entire officer corps. The relative vacuum that has been created in the lower officer ranks increases psychological discomfort among senior officers who are forced to bear additional physical and mental loads.

Economic factors. They are closely related to social networks. Analysis of the reasons for the deterioration of military discipline shows that they are largely due to the socio-economic problems of our society. This is reflected in the crisis state of the economy with all the consequences that follow for the Armed Forces. As a result, we have an accelerating process of moral and physical aging of equipment and weapons, which objectively leads to an increase in breakdowns and accidents, fraught with dangers to the life and health of military personnel. On this basis, the personnel's faith in the reliability and safety of their weapons is undermined. Everywhere there is a serious shortage of fuel and lubricants for conducting scheduled combat training sessions and ensuring the daily life of troops. A decrease in the social status of the army and navy, a decline in the prestige of military service in society, and the transformation of the Armed Forces into an institution of social risk were allowed. State authorities, especially in the local areas, have essentially eliminated the practical issues of conscription of young people for service, the return of fugitives, evading conscripts, mobilization training of troops and some other problems, leaving them entirely to the military department.

Psychological and pedagogical factors.

It is necessary to bring the organizational and staff structure of the troops in line with the tasks assigned to them, taking into account the solution of problems of military discipline. It is necessary to purposefully form optimal relationships between military personnel, improve interethnic relations, social and psychological compatibility in military collectives, and prevent conflict situations in them.

The officer, unfortunately, has an extremely low psychological, pedagogical and legal culture today. This is a consequence of the technocratic approach to various spheres of activity, including military construction in the previous period. As a result, the education of personnel is organized primitively, and the role of educational structures is underestimated.

Legal factors.

We must objectively admit that at the moment the regulatory framework (including temporary charters) does not correspond to the stage of construction of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Belarus. There is excessive liberalism, especially in relation to offenders - conscripts. The unit commander, as a body of inquiry, is not interested in initiating criminal cases, especially if the crimes did not entail serious consequences, despite the measures taken to streamline the analysis of military discipline (order of the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Belarus No. 330 for 1996). The quantitative approach to assessing crimes in the military is still absolutized. Consideration of criminal cases often lasts up to six months or more, and due to imperfect legal proceedings, it often ends with an acquittal. Here the ways to solve the problem are as follows:

1. Improvement of approaches to the analysis of the state of military discipline in units and subdivisions involves taking into account statistical parameters. A quantitative criterion in the assessment of military discipline is necessary. However, it should be thoroughly supplemented by a deep and comprehensive, comprehensive study of all issues related to the state of military discipline. The analysis should not only reflect the consequences of misdemeanors and violations, but also reveal their causes, indicate ways to eliminate them and indicate measures to prevent such violations in the future.

2. Bringing the misdemeanor and penalty into line.

The experience of studying disciplinary practice in certain units and subdivisions of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Belarus has shown that among the variety of violations of disciplinary practice, some fundamental rules are most often ignored:

- bringing to disciplinary responsibility must be justified and fair, which is not always observed in reality;

- penalties may be imposed only by certain persons within the limits of the rights granted to them in strict accordance with the requirements of the Disciplinary Charter.

The current conditions, the study and generalization of disciplinary practice lead to the need to amend the Disciplinary Charter. In particular, to expand the rights of the brigade commander and above to impose disciplinary penalties on conscripts-up to two months of arrest with detention in the brig. The brig is not a prison; an arrest can achieve the goal of re-education and at the same time not cripple the psyche of people, which very often, unfortunately, happens in the ITK.

3. Prevention of concealment of incidents and crimes.

Individual commanders and superiors, trying to create a picture of imaginary well-being, take the path of distorting facts. The logic here is simple: once the commander submitted the correct information to the instance, without concealing anything, and found himself in a less favorable light than the one who slightly "corrected"his data. In the end, even the most honest person may come to doubt: is it necessary to expose yourself to the blow? Therefore, the improvement of the regulatory framework in this aspect is seen: in a radical expansion of the disciplinary rights of officials; in eliminating objective reasons for concealing offenses by issuing regulations that clearly regulate the procedure for assessing the state of military discipline, regardless of the number of criminal cases initiated.

Organizational and managerial factors.

These factors imply: the shortage of a significant part of officers, primarily of the primary management level; the extremely imperfect organizational and staffing structure of airfield technical and material support units, which does not allow organizing proper control over personnel; insufficiently thought-out management decisions that negatively affect public opinion (practical implementation of the decision to pay a monthly allowance to the monetary maintenance of officers those who have the right to a pension, an increase in the salary of the central apparatus against the background of the constant salary of the officers of the troops, etc.); insufficient knowledge of the theory of managing a part of the officers, inability to restore statutory order in military collectives by legal methods, taking into account modern conditions.

The essential content of these factors is determined mainly by two fundamental problems:

1. Increasing interrelation of military discipline and combat readiness. It is caused by: the maximum reduction in the time for bringing units and formations to high combat readiness; the need for constant combat readiness of units and subunits regardless of their location; the emergence of a new type of activity - combat duty; the strengthening of the role of moral, combat and psychological factors in modern warfare.

The central link of combat readiness is a person, military equipment without it is dead. So, for the formation of high combat readiness, it is important to know what a modern warrior is like as a person, what are his professional, psychological, physical and other qualities.

2. The right balance of unity of command and democratization of army life. Strict centralization of control, well-honed coordination of actions, and concentration of efforts on fulfilling the commander's order are of paramount importance for ensuring high combat readiness. Unity of command was, is and will be the main core of the controllability of the Armed Forces, but it is important in the context of the democratization of society and the army not to cross the line where chaos and anarchy begin.

Directive of the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Belarus No. D-11 for 1996 introduced temporary provisions on soldiers ' councils of military units. If properly organized, public bodies contribute to strengthening unity of command and play a positive role in strengthening unity of command.

I would especially like to highlight the moral basis of unity of command - justice. Any manifestations of rudeness, tactlessness, humiliation of the dignity of the individual only undermine the commander's authority. Unfortunately, often officers can not do without high notes in their voice, and sometimes offensive expressions, which not only do not contribute to strengthening discipline, but, on the contrary, undermine order and interfere with business. The Armed Forces of the Republic of Belarus continue to see an increase in crimes based on abuse of power. If in 1995 they accounted for 6 percent of all types of crimes, in 1996 - 7.5 percent, then in 1997-already 10.1 percent. In the interests of strengthening unity of command, you should better use proven weapons - a personal example of a leader who is rightfully considered the most effective means of influencing subordinates.

Target factors.

According to the author, they should include the most relevant factors in a certain period of time. They should be adjusted. At this stage, their solution is as follows::

The implementation of the territorial principle of recruiting the army contributes to closer interaction of recruits with parents, schools, labor collectives, military enlistment offices, police, etc.

As a result, the effectiveness of educational work increases, and the moral situation improves.

Unity and coordination of actions of military command and control bodies. It is implemented primarily by commanders who direct educational work, and by officers-educators who directly organize and conduct such work. The President of the Republic of Belarus has assigned responsibility for the state of law and order, military discipline, and suicide prevention to deputy commanders for educational work and military psychologists. This seriously raises the role of the caregiver officer.

The positive experience of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, where proposals are being considered to improve the structure of full-time positions of educational officers, deserves attention. In addition to the deputy battalion commander for educational work, the battalion is supposed to have a psychologist; in the regiment, the position of an officer for social work and crime prevention will be divided into two positions - in addition to the existing position of a specialist for working with military families (the latter is very relevant for the Armed Forces of the Republic of Belarus, where in 1997, for the first time, permanent staff - 58.8 percent); to put into practice a provision defining that when implementing decisions of the regimental commander concerning educational work, his deputy has the right to give orders to subordinates on behalf of the commander.

The author takes an unambiguous position: the mutual exchange of experience between military authorities is necessary and relevant for the Armed Forces not only of the Republic of Belarus and the Russian Federation, but also of other CIS member states.

Elimination of violations of the statutory rules of relationships. "Hazing" in army groups has long been a byword. Now it is a source of inspiration for other journalists writing on military topics. Unfortunately, we have to state that the number of crimes motivated by violations of the statutory rules of relations between military personnel in the Armed Forces of the Republic of Belarus in 1997 increased by 6.4 percent compared to 1995. They are becoming increasingly hidden, persistent and dangerous. In order to prevent violations of the statutory rules of relations between military personnel, it is necessary to strive to ensure full compliance with their rights established by law, to develop a person in uniform confidence in the protection of his legitimate interests, so that he feels the commander's concern for the protection of his honor and dignity.

It is necessary to establish a procedure that allows a serviceman to be accepted by the commander on the days of personal reception or use the "helpline".

A significant number of conscripts believe that official structures are not able to put an end to "hazing". Therefore, the implementation of the educational opportunities of the army way of life is of exceptional importance for breaking shameful traditions: strict control over compliance with the daily routine, the requirements of the statutes, starting with the rules of military politeness, as well as training officers in the use of various methods of education and re-education. The author suggests creating psychological support groups in divisions, brigades and regiments - permanent non-standard bodies that are organizationally part of the departments of educational work and are led by deputy commanders for educational work. They should include military psychologists and doctors.

One of the most important areas of the fight against offenses is the resolute position of the military command bodies in taking prompt measures, up to bringing the perpetrators to criminal responsibility. As many criminal cases should be initiated as are necessary to eliminate violations.

In conclusion, I would like to emphasize that in addition to these factors, there are others that also affect the maintenance and strengthening of military discipline. The above considerations and suggestions on the main, fundamental problems do not at all exclude specific and purposeful activities of the military administration bodies to neutralize any negative impact.

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