Militsiya


Militsiya were the police forces in the Soviet Union until 1991, in several Eastern Bloc countries, and in the non-aligned SFR Yugoslavia. The term Militsiya continues to be used in common and sometimes official usage in some of the individual former Soviet republics such as Belarus, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, as well as in the partially recognised or unrecognised republics of Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Transnistria. In Russian law enforcement, the term remained in official usage until the police reform of 2011.

Name and status

The name militsiya as applied to police forces originates from a Russian Provisional Government decree dated April 17, 1917, and from early Soviet history: both the Provisional Government and the Bolsheviks intended to associate their new law-enforcement authority with the self-organisation of the people and to distinguish it from the czarist police. The militsiya was reaffirmed in Russia on October 28, 1917 under the official name of the "Workers' and Peasants' Militsiya", in further contrast to what the Bolsheviks called the "bourgeois class protecting" police. Eventually, it was replaced by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which is now the official full name for the militsiya forces in the respective countries. Its regional branches are officially called Departments of Internal Affairs—city department of internal affairs, raion department of internal affairs, oblast department of internal affairs, etc., for region department is UVD or, sometimes, GUVD, same for national republics is MVD
File:1982 Dacia 1310 in Bucharest.jpg|thumb|Romanian Miliția car in the typical livery it featured starting with the early 1970s. This particular example is a Dacia 1310 from 1982. This is one of the examples of Eastern European adaptations of this name.
Functionally, Ministries of Internal Affairs are mostly police agencies. Their functions and organisation differ significantly from similarly named departments in Western countries, which are usually civil executive bodies headed by politicians and responsible for many other tasks as well as the supervision of law enforcement. The Soviet and successor MVDs have usually been headed by a militsiya general and predominantly consist of service personnel, with civilian employees only filling auxiliary posts. Although such ministers are members of their respective countries' cabinets, they usually do not report to the prime minister or parliament, but only to the president. Local militsiya departments are subordinated to their regional departments, having little accountability to local authorities.
Internal-affairs units within the militsiya itself are usually called "internal security" departments.
The official names of particular militsiya bodies and services in post-Soviet countries are usually very complicated, hence the use of the short term militsiya. Laws usually refer to police just as militsiya.
The short term for a police officer is militsioner. Slang Russian terms for militsioner include ment and musor. Although the latter word is offensive, it originated from an acronym for the Moscow Criminal Investigations Department in Imperial Russia. Ment is a close equivalent to the English slang term "cop" and derived from the Lwów dialect of Polish
or possibly from the Polish word menda.
The following countries have changed the name of the police force from Militsiya to a western-style name analogous to "police": Bulgaria, Poland, Romania, Estonia, Lithuania, Moldova, Latvia, Mongolia, North Macedonia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Slovenia, Kazakhstan, Armenia, Turkmenistan, Russia and Ukraine.
In 2019, Uzbekistan officially removed references to the word "Militsiya" from its laws without replacing them with "police".
The police are still called militsiya in Belarus, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, as well as in the unrecognized republics of Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Transnistria. In Kyrgyzstan active discussion continues about renaming the police force from militsiya to police.

General overview

The organizational structure, methods and traditions of the militsiya differ significantly from those of western police. Militsiya as an organisation consists of many functional departments, such as the GIBDD, a traffic police. Organised crime detectives form highly independent squads inside regional militsiya. Some units may have the distinctive names which are more specific than militsiya or militsioner.
Militsiya personnel ranks mostly follow those of the Army – from private, which is the lowest rank, to colonel general – with only these exceptions: there are no ranks of Yefreytor, Army General, or Marshal. Detectives, "operative", short for "operative employee" – operativniy rabotnik ) hold a rank of at least lieutenant, and could be promoted to major or colonel. The militsiya of an oblast is usually headed by a general. The rank name is suffixed with "of militsiya". Militsiya personnel carry firearms, but are not permitted to carry their weapons when they are off duty.
Unlike in some other countries' police agencies, militsioners are not assigned permanent partners, but work alone or within larger groups. Neither uniformed officers nor detectives are allowed to drive police vehicles themselves, so a specialist driver is assigned to each car and is also in charge of its maintenance. Under the Patrol Police Service Regulations a designated police officer-driver is required to have a driver licence and is not allowed to abandon the vehicle. However, this refers only to fully marked police vehicles with emergency lights; detectives are allowed to drive civilian cars with are registered to the MVD, having white number plates with specific series. The last two are usually assigned to the vehicles registered to regional level MVD units. The law does not provide any preferences on the road nor allows emergency lights and/or sirens on such vehicles, therefore technically police officers do not have the right to violate traffic laws even while on an assignment. GIBDD is the only exception: its members drive their own cars and are specially trained in risk-driving.
One unique feature of militsiya policing approach is the system of territorial patronage over citizens. The cities, as well as the rural settlements are divided into uchastoks with a special uchastkovyi militsioner, assigned to each. The main duty of uchastkovyi is to maintain close relations with the residents of his quarter and gather information among them. In particular, uchastkovyi should personally know each and every ex-convict, substance abuser, young hooligan etc. in given uchastok, and visit them regularly for preemptive influence. Uchastkovyi is also responsible for tackling minor offences like family violence, loud noise, residential area parking etc. Uchastkovyi is also the main, and actually the real, militsiya force in remote areas and small settlements where permanent police departments are not created. Uchastkovyi militsioners possess separate small offices within their quarters and maintain citizens admittance in definite weekdays.
This system slightly resembles the US system of sheriffs but shows some notable differences. Uchastkovyi is neither a chief police officer in a given community nor a universal one.
The system of uchastkovyis dates back to imperial times when uriadniks were conducting lowest-level policing in rural areas. In Soviet Union, uchastkovyis were also responsible for such tasks as maintaining propiska limitations and overseeing former political prisoners, which were subject to daily registration at the local MVD office.
Although women constitute a significant proportion of militsiya staff, they are usually not permitted to fill positions that carry risks, but are allowed to carry firearms for self-defence. Instead, they are widely represented among investigators, juvenile crime inspectors, clerks, etc. However, limited attempts are being made to appoint women as traffic officers or operativniks.

Conscripted police

Another unique militsiya feature is the use of conscripted soldiers from the Internal Troops and special motorized militsiya units for regular urban policing and for securing various mass events, which required more force employment than usual. The Internal Troops and SMChMs are the gendarmerie-like military force who can be assigned to carry out simple public security tasks like patrolling while being accompanied by professional militsioners, or cordoning large crowds at sport events, concerts, and protests. These soldiers possess no firearms on their policing duties, however they are equipped with PR-73 rubber police batons, PR-90 tonfas and related equipment; when called to perform riot control duties, they are typically equipped with ballistic shields and tear gas. The SMChM soldiers typically wear grey militsiya uniforms, distinguished from commissioned officers by wearing standard-issued sapogi instead of individual boots or shoes, the Internal Troops wear green military uniform. During emergencies, raids, dragnets and other police operations, they are equipped with bullet-proof vests and protective gear, firearms and armoured vehicles while performing their policing duties.
While not on law enforcement duty, soldiers reside in barracks and maintain standard military training. Special motorised militsiya units stationed in the cities were all battalions with three exceptions. Kyiv and Leningrad had regiments and Moscow had a division, known as ODON, which is frequently used for policing Moscow; its soldiers can be spotted by a shoulder patch which features a white panther; other Internal troops units in the Moscow region use a shoulder patch with a white falcon.