Paramilitary security in Russia
Paramilitary security in Russia are specialized paramilitary organizations, security units with a special legal status, armed with combat small arms and firearms, that protect the country's infrastructure facilities of important state significance, as well as cargo and other property. The nomenclature of property of various types subject to protection by the paramilitary security is established by legal acts of various departments and/or state bodies or international treaties. Paramilitary security units may be included in the regular troops or used as auxiliary forces during a war, armed conflict, or counter-terrorism operation.
History
Departmental paramilitary guard
Departmental guards and the VOKhR (1918–1924)
During the Russian Revolution, the Bolsheviks had a paramilitary organisation called the Red Guards, they developed into the Red Army after Vladimir Lenin wrote: "There is only one way to prevent the restoration of the police, and that is to create a people's militia and to fuse it with the army."The Soviet authorities paid special attention to the protection of communication routes and industrial enterprises. Decree of the Council of People's Commissars "On the centralization of management, protection of roads and increase of their transportability" military protection of Railways was established from detachments organized mainly from railway workers, who were subordinate to responsible persons appointed or approved by the People's Commissar of Railways. These detachments, including the duties of flying control detachments, both to combat stowaway and indiscriminate transportation of goods, and to combat the downtime of wagons and steam locomotives. In accordance with this Decree, the Resolution of the Council of People's Commissars of July 17, 1918 No. 600, the Directorate for the Protection of Railways was established under the People's Commissariat of Railways, it was planned to bring the number of security officers to seventy thousand people. Thus, for the first time, measures were taken to create a centralized system of departmental protection.
The created armed security units were able to slightly improve the order on the railways, the railwaymen were protected from raids by armed gangs. At the same time, some roads sought to independently solve the issues of security organization, opposing the centralization of security management and did not take into account the instructions of the NKPS. In addition, employees. The Cheka criticized the railway security:
The materials available to the commission on protection from a number of localities of the Soviet Federation indicate many cases of inndonation, a disorganizing action to combat fraud, cases of collision of food detachments with the protection of the railways on the Kursk line and a number of processes in the hands of the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution and Speculation – all this gives the right to conclude that the railway guard cannot be considered reliable, cannot protect a major railway mechanism and can politically pose a huge danger to the Soviet power... Thus, life itself dictates the need to organize a corps of disciplined and militarily trained people.Other departments also created their own armed formations that were not part of the Red Army Accordingly, each of these departments used its own armed formations at its own discretion. In this regard, on August 19, 1918. The Council of People's Commissars adopted a decree on the unification of all armed forces of the republic and their transfer to the jurisdiction of the People's Commissariat for Military Affairs. At a meeting of the Revolutionary Council of the Republic on September 15, 1918, it was announced that the railway guard was subordinate to the Revolutionary Military Council. The said Decree of the Council of People's Commissars No. 668 was announced in the order of the Revolutionary military Council of the Republic No. 46 only on October 10, 1918.
On November 28, 1918, by the decree of the Council of People's Commissars, martial law was introduced on the railways, all railway employees were considered called up for military service, remaining in the performance of their duties. The previously existing NKPS communication route security
was disbanded, its personnel with all property and weapons were transferred to the military department.
The Red army was established in 1918 soon after the revolution, the predecessor of the VOKhR paramilitary was called the "Departmental armed and unarmed guards". At the time the Russian Civil War had begun and had already greatly affected the Bolsheviks, they had taken over the government but the White Army and the many minorities and republics declared war in the midst of the chaos. Because of the numerous external and internal security threats that were present during the civil war, the Council of People's Commissars created the Cheka. The Internal Security Troops of the Republic were formally established by the Resolution of the Council of Workers' and Peasants' Defense of the RSFSR dated May 28, 1919. The VOKhR paramilitary was created and developed from the Departmental armed and unarmed guards along with the larger secret police of the Cheka, internal security was needed but the security of the undeveloped countryside of Russia and many other forms of security were also needed which was the main reason that the VOKhR branch was created.
On March 3, 1920, a department of industrial militia was established as part of the Main Directorate of Police of the RSFSR, and similar departments were formed in the provincial departments. The industrial police had a special task – to protect the economic heritage of the Republic: factories, warehouses, institutions, forests, state farms, mining, etc. In December 1921, due to the transition to NEP and a significant reduction in staff, the industrial militia was disbanded. However, many industrial and commercial enterprises, not wanting to remain defenseless, retained the material base and a team of security guards, organizing departmental protection in their staff. At the same time, a significant mass of warehouses belonging to various departments actually remained without round-the-clock security, as the low remuneration of watchmen did not contribute to the influx of those wishing to join the service, which naturally negatively affected the quality of protection
On June 1, 1921, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR adopted the Decree "On Measures to Combat Theft from State Warehouses and Official Crimes Contributing to Theft".
On December 9, 1921, on the initiative of Felix Dzerzhinsky adopted the Decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the STO of the RSFSR "On the protection of warehouses, warehouses and storage rooms, as well as structures on railway and waterways", according to which the Armed Protection of Communication Routes of both state and private property was created in the structure of the NKPS of the RSFSR on the basis of the abolished railway and water militia. The defense of communication routes and the protection of individual structures of strategic importance remained with the Military Department. The protection of the NKPS of the RSFSR became the first departmental state armed protection with a special status, a prototype of paramilitary security.
On May 24, 1922, by a resolution of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR, the Regulation on the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs of the RSFSR was put into effect, which entrusted the workers' and peasants' militia with the tasks of protecting most civil institutions and structures of national exceptional importance, concentration camps, forests, plantations, etc.
The Regulation determined that:
The protection of artillery warehouses, warehouses of explosives and firearms, as well as institutions of the military and maritime departments, the protection of all property transferred to the jurisdiction of these departments, as well as the transportation of goods of these departments was entrusted to the People's Commissariat for Military Affairs.On November 15, 1922, the government of the RSFSR considered a draft Regulation on the organization of departmental armed protection of state institutions, enterprises and property.
Institutions and warehouses of no national importance may be guarded by armed or unarmed guards. The determination of the importance of an institution or warehouse of local importance for the need to be punished by the police, as well as the cases of inability to entrust it to the latter, is carried out by a commission chaired by the relevant police chief or his representative and consisting of members – a representative of the People's Commissariat of the Workers' and Peasant Inspectorate and a representative of the department interested in the protection of the department.
The resolution of the above-mentioned commission serves as a basis for the interested agencies to protect civilian armed or unarmed guards and request appropriate loans for this subject.
On February 6, 1924, the Resolution of the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR on the creation of a departmental militia was adopted and the Regulation on departmental police was approved. It was created to protect the property of state enterprises and institutions, as well as private organizations of state importance and the protection of law and order within the territory occupied by these facilities. The departmental police was created on a contractual basis with the administration of the national economic facilities it protected and was maintained at their expense.
VOKhR security units as part of the Transport Route Protection of the NKPS of the USSR (1924–1927)
In 1923, the military department was exempted from the protection of a number of railway transport facilities, mainly bridges of strategic importance. The duty to protect them was assigned to the NKPS of the CCCR. Since December 4, 1923, Special Armed Detachments began to be created as part of the Communication Routes Protection, the personnel of which began to be guided by the provisions and charters in force in the Red Army. With the formation of the PSB, the armed guards of the NKPS were divided into two parts: non-military, which was used to protect property and transported goods, and paramilitary, designed primarily to protect objects of national importance. For the first time, the position of "shooter" was introduced for ordinary employees of the PSB. Each detachment was armed with a machine gun, as well as an armoured train, which was used to escort passenger and freight trains with particularly valuable or important cargo and to repel raids of large gangs. The creation of PSBs contributed to improving the protection of facilities and cargo. Thus, if in 1922 7,888,724 poods of cargo were stolen, in 1923 only 2,221,000 poods. In September 1924, it was noted that "the obvious thefts committed by breaking the seals, running cars, etc. almost completely stopped on transport...".On October 22, 1926, the NKPS established, according to the approved list, in 15 commercial ports Armed Protection of Ports, operating on the same grounds as the railway security. The shooters and command staff had to have the trademark of the merchant fleet emblem on their uniforms.