"New Year 1937 in Russia" Topic

In Russia, there are mass arrests of high-ranking officials of the Ministry of Defense and other security agencies on charges of corruption.

The four most famous arrests:

The first was Deputy Defense Minister Timur Ivanov, who was accused of taking a bribe in the amount of about 1 billion rubles; the official was arrested on April 24.

In mid-May, the head of the personnel department of the Russian Ministry of Defense, Yuri Kuznetsov, was detained and arrested in connection with a bribe case.

On May 17, former commander of the 58th Army of the Southern Military District, Ivan Popov, was also arrested in connection with the fraud case.

And yesterday – the arrest of the Deputy Chief of the Russian General Staff, Head of the Main Communications Directorate, Lieutenant General Vadim Shamarin, on charges of receiving a large bribe from business structures.

Also, many senior officers leave service voluntarily or are suspended as part of criminal cases.

I assumed it would happen sooner, but better late than never.

The troops at the front are feeling uplifted amid reports of the start of an anti-corruption campaign in the Ministry of Defense. Soldiers and officers are massively expressing support for the new Minister of Defense. His words from a recent speech: "You can make mistakes – you cannot lie!" have become a real mass army flash mob on social networks.

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Is this part of an anti-corruption drive or are they likely to be trumped up charges to get rid of underperforming individuals?
Either way I can imagine that front line soldiers would be happy.

If you remember Prigozhin's strange rebellion, directed specifically against Defense Ministry officials, whom he accused of corruption. If you see that a scientist-economist has been appointed to the post of the new Minister of Defense, about whom literally everyone, including oppositionists who left Russia, speaks as an honest person (and who has no obligations to the employees of the Ministry of Defense – and therefore is not interested in hiding them from responsibility). If you see that Shoigu was removed from a government post, where he can influence the investigation in the Ministry of Defense and in the defense sector of the economy, then we can assume that a real defeat of the corruption system in the army is underway.
In addition, there is already a program in place according to which combat veterans are trained for free to become government officials and managers, and they will be called upon to gradually replace the leaders formed in the 90s – the very time of the development of crime and corruption in Russia. Processes are also underway to seize production facilities from businesses that were illegally privatized in the 90s and used inefficiently.
All this suggests that the country is indeed undergoing a process of serious restructuring of management and increasing the efficiency of the economy. Which, by the way, is clearly visible from the growing indicators, despite the war and sanctions.
Well, whether it will work out or not, we'll see.

And one more thing… It was not the combat generals who were arrested, but those who mainly solved supply and support issues. If they are to blame for the defeats, it is only indirectly.

Well, damn…Russia has an historical habit stretching back hundreds of years of bumbling early military conflicts until the political cronies and fools get weeded out, then they come back strong. Are we tempering the Russian military in the fires of Ukraine while the US and NATO leadership vie for their next stars by playing diversity and gender identity politics games? Is the US/NATO officer becoming like the French officer corps of 1940, while the Russian officer corps is tending towards 1943?

Weeding out corruption is always a good thing. Anywhere, any time.

Good point SBminisguy. I fear you might be right

I am 2/3 the way reading Arkady Vaksberg
The Prosecutor and the Prey
Vyshilinsky and the 1930s Moscow Show Trials
The war is just staring so not sure where it's going but covers the 30s trials.
All Kangaroo Courts, names come out of the blue and the defendant ends of admitting crimes that never happened, admitting they are says for many different countries and name others who get the same experience, most shot hours afterwards, some if lucky sent to Gulags for a decade or more.
Being a Bolshevik is no help or being a Leninist.

"…In addition, there is already a program in place according to which combat veterans are trained for free to become government officials and managers, and they will be called upon to gradually replace the leaders formed in the 90s – the very time of the development of crime and corruption in Russia. Processes are also underway to seize production facilities from businesses that were illegally privatized in the 90s and used inefficiently…"

This smells very strongly of blaming the "West" again… we happen to be talking about the era of Yeltsin not the hero Putin… where surely there was no corruption under his nose during the last decades of his Theocracy at the head of the State…

Armand

Putin is a product of the 90s, the result of the "Great Criminal Revolution of 1991," in which he, presumably, actively participated. If you live in an era of gigantic redistribution of property, criminal redistribution of property, you will take part in those processes and you will not be able to remain "clean".
But you know that many successful people, companies, projects and even states are based on crimes. Alas. Thefts, fraud, colonial oppression, drug trafficking, robberies… You change titles, names, legal forms, even worldviews – and after fifty, one hundred, two hundred years your money is as pure as a child's tear…. But if you dig deep – you can see a very unpleasant picture ;)
My opinion: Putin was, at one time, appointed as an arbiter between the criminal clans that divided the former USSR into parts. And he coped well with this role for twenty years. But during this time, former bandits became respectable politicians and businessmen. Their interests, methods, plans have changed.
Is he guilty of past crimes (including corruption)? Without a doubt. But if corruption now hinders their interests and plans, they will destroy it.

As Karl Marx said: "Being determines consciousness"

14Bore, these repressions, in my opinion, had several reasons:

- lack of democratic methods of struggle for power in the USSR

- the creation of a monster special service (NKVD), which includes literally all law enforcement agencies – from firefighters, criminal police, the penitentiary system to the foreign intelligence service. Services that have their own factories, their own economy, their own trading networks… This is a state within a state… How long do you think it will be until the interests of the real state and the monster state-NKVD collide? It was not for nothing that the personnel of that NKVD were destroyed twice as a result of the same repressions; this monster was divided into various departments that were not subordinate to each other… And only after this the repressions were curbed.
In today's Russia, this is impossible, since there is no such monster and there will always be effective counteraction from other security agencies.

Putin's Military Purge Ramps Up as General Gerasimov's Top Deputy Arrested

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Armand

"who was accused of taking a bribe in the amount of about 1 billion rubles"

Sooooo, about $12.50 USD.

"The troops at the front are feeling uplifted amid reports of the start of an anti-corruption campaign in the Ministry of Defense. Soldiers and officers are massively expressing support for the new Minister of Defense."

Amazing how many times troops living in a dictatorship feel 'uplifted' and 'massively support' the actions of the dictator.

"they will be called upon to gradually replace the leaders formed in the 90s – the very time of the development of crime and corruption in Russia."

Because there was NO corruption in the Soviet Union…

"Processes are also underway to seize production facilities from businesses that were illegally privatized in the 90s and used inefficiently."

Because the communists were SOOOO efficient! This is beyond parody! LOL

"If you live in an era of gigantic redistribution of property, criminal redistribution of property, you will take part in those processes and you will not be able to remain "clean".

Are you referring to the kulaks losing their land to the state?

"But you know that many successful people, companies, projects and even states are based on crimes."

So are complete failures like the Soviet Union and modern Russia.

Dn Jackson + 10

Armand