Dedovshchina

Dedovshchina (дедовщина) is the informal practice of hazing and abuse of junior conscripts historically in the Soviet Armed Forces and today in the Russian armed forces, Internal Troops, and to a much lesser extent FSB, Border Guards, as well as in other armed forces and special services of former Soviet Republics. It consists of brutalization by more senior conscripts, NCOs, and officers. It is a form of non-statutory dominant-status relations between military personnel; the most common form of non-statutory relations, which is a violation of the statutory rules of relations between conscripts, based on the informal hierarchical division of soldiers and sergeants by enlistment and length of service. The cultural basis of Dedovshchina is made up of traditions, customs and rituals that are passed down from conscription to conscription. Often (but not always), these traditions and rituals are associated with the humiliation of the honor and dignity of servicemen of the later conscription by servicemen of the earlier conscription. Dedovshchina encompasses a variety of subordinating and humiliating activities undertaken by the junior ranks, from doing the chores of the senior ranks, to violent and sometimes deadly physical and psychological abuse, not unlike an extremely vicious form of bullying or torture, including sexual torture and anal rape. There have been occasions where soldiers have been seriously injured or killed. The term is derived from "ded" (дед, meaning grandfather), which is the Russian Army slang equivalent of gramps, meaning soldiers after their third (or fourth, which is also known as "dembel" (дембель or "DMB" ДМБ) half-year of compulsory service, stemming from a vulgarization of the word "demobilization" (демобилизация demobilizatsiya) – this word is erroneously used by soldiers to describe the act of resigning from the army); soldiers also refer to "dembel" half-year of conscription, with the suffix -shchina which denotes a type of order, rule, or regime (compare Yezhovshchina, Zhdanovshchina).