The first Red Army service regulations approved

The first service regulations appeared in Russia in 16^th -17^th centuries. The history knows “Boyar order on stanitsa watch service” (1571), “Regulations of military, gun and other affairs of the military science” (1607 and 1621), “Science and stratagem of the infantry combatant line training” (1647). In 1716 Peter I developed “The military regulations” for the regular army. Later the similar regulations were repeatedly republished.

After the October revolution of 1917 the legislation of the tsar’s period was abrogated. However in the making of the Red Army there was a great need for regulations that would regulate in the first place the internal order in military units, the ordinary live of the army, the service and discipline of the Red Army soldiers. At the absence of the new regulations the leaders were obliged to apply to the old ones or to make up different kinds of instructions based on the old regulations as well as on the local experience of the military structure.

On November 29, 1918 the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the RSFSR approved the first Red Army military regulations – the Regulations of the internal service and of Harrison service. The basis for the Internal service regulations were the Tsar army internal service regulations. The new Regulations read: “Every Soviet republic citizen having a military rank of the Red Army man is obliged to… bear this rank with honor, study thoroughly the military science, cherish as the apple of one’s eye the military property from damage and theft; respect strictly the revolutionary discipline; obey implicitly to all the orders of commanders and commissars appointed by the Workers’ and Peasants’ government; forbear himself and keep his comrades from any deeds defaming and humbling the dignity of the Soviet republic citizen and direct all his actions and thoughts to the great objective of all the working people liberation…”

The new Harrison service regulations were a simplified version of a similar pre-revolutionary document abridged to more than a half. Everything that at the moment was considered alien to the organization, spirit, essence and objective of the Red Army was removed from it. Reformulating the old Harrison service regulations the preparatory commission extracted from it all the formalities and ceremonies, salutation, gala part, articles concerning the religious cult and some other sections.

Lit.: Первые уставы РККА [Электронный ресурс] // Рабоче-Крестьянская Красная Армия. 1999-2012. URL: http://www.rkka.ru/history/ustav/main.htm; Шушканов Ю. Г., Богданов С. А. Порядок разработки уставных документов в ВС СССР в годы Гражданской войны и в межвоенный период (1918-1941) // Военная мысль. 2006. № 11.