Dedovshchina (; lit. reign of grandfathers) is the informal practice of hazing and abuse of junior conscripts historically in the Soviet Armed Forces and today in the Russian armed forces, Internal Troops, and to a much lesser extent FSB, Border Guards, as well as in other armed forces and special services of former Soviet Republics. It consists of brutalization by more senior conscripts, NCOs, and officers. Dedovshchina encompasses a variety of subordinating and humiliating activities undertaken by the junior ranks, from doing the chores of the senior ranks, to violent and sometimes deadly physical and psychological abuse, not unlike an extremely vicious form of bullying or torture, including sexual torture and anal rape. There have been occasions where soldiers have been seriously injured or killed. Etymology The term is derived from "ded" (, meaning grandfather), which is the Russian Army slang equivalent of gramps, meaning soldiers after their third (or fourth, which is also known as "dembel" ( or "DMB" ) half-year of compulsory service, stemming from a vulgarization of the word "demobilization" ( demobilizatsiya) – this word is erroneously used by soldiers to describe the act of resigning from the army); soldiers also refer to "dembel" half-year of conscription, with the suffix -shchina which denotes a type of order, rule, or regime (compare Yezhovshchina, Zhdanovshchina). Thus, it can literally be translated as "rule of the grandfathers". This is essentially a folk system of seniority based on stage of service, mostly not backed by code or law, which only grants seniority to conscripts promoted to various sergeant and yefreitor ranks. History Hazing existed in some military schools of the Russian Empire, including the Page Corps. The origin of this problem is often attributed to the change in conscription term brought about by the law of 12 October 1967, causing two different groups of conscripts to be simultaneously present in the army: those who were drafted for three-year service and those only for two-year service. However, A.D. Glotochkin researched psychological problems of young soldiers before 1967. During the same year, a decision was reached to draft conscripts with a criminal history into the ranks, due to a demographic crisis following World War II. While oppression by older conscripts has probably always taken place in the army, after that date, with the introduction of the four-class system (created by the bi-annual call-ups) it became systematic and developed its own rules and ranks.