Despair in The Barracks

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As the Soviet Union disintegrated, the military seemed to be about the only central institution that might survive relatively intact. The very picture of unity, order and discipline, it was the force everyone courted to approve -- or wreck -- plans for the new commonwealth.

But the military's solidity is illusory. Ever dependent on Moscow center to feed an enormous appetite for men and materiel, the armed forces find they cannot sustain themselves. They have struggled through five years of political disparagement and military failure, and they have watched their privileges and perks dwindle away. Now "the collapse is finally happening," says Dr. Patrick Parker, an analyst at the Naval Postgraduate School in California. "The economic destruction of the Soviet Union is having a massive effect."

Conscription has broken down in some areas, and the desertion rate is rising. Pay is so meager that soldiers have resorted to selling military equipment on the black market. Fuel shortages are so dire that many ships and submarines have been forced to return to their home ports. Planes, ships and tanks are being cannibalized for spare parts. Thousands of demobilized troops from Eastern Europe are stranded without adequate housing and benefits in shabby tent cities. Morale is at a nadir. "The military is absolutely shellshocked," says Dale Herspring of the Smithsonian Institution's Woodrow Wilson Center. "Cohesion is so destroyed that they couldn't mount a coup even if some officers wanted to."

Though traditionally loath to involve themselves in politics, military personnel are angrily demanding more respect. "The army is fed up with uncertainty, with humiliation. It wants its dignity restored," says Russian Information Minister Mikhail Poltoranin.

One dangerous potential source of conflict among soldiers arises from the insistence by the republics on fielding their own armies. According to a source who attended the meeting last week between Russian President Boris Yeltsin and top Soviet generals, the military leaders agreed to allow the republics to create land units, while the navy, air force and all nuclear units would remain under unified commonwealth command. But whether the old army, which includes many conscripts, will be splintered by nationalism is still an urgent question.

There are 3.7 million Soviet soldiers, sailors and air force personnel, down from 5 million, but still the largest military force in the world. Although some units have been pulled back into Russia as the Soviet empire has shrunk, many remain virtually marooned in far-flung outposts defending a U.S.S.R. that no longer exists: 260,000 Soviet troops in eastern Germany, 45,000 in Poland, 120,000 in the independent Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. The Fourth Army remains billeted in Azerbaijan, its unhappy assignment to prevent bloodshed between militant Azerbaijanis and Armenians -- two peoples who are no longer under the aegis of Moscow.

Living conditions for the troops are grim. Officers stationed in the Ukrainian town of Vitebsk have set up housekeeping in a stable. Soldiers in what was then called the Leningrad Military District built pigsties and planted vegetable gardens last spring so they would be assured of having food this winter. Barracks across the country have run out of new clothing, as well as medical supplies, parachutes and gasoline.