Dedovshchina

Dedovshchina (Russian: дедовщи́на; IPA: [dʲɪdɐˈfɕːinə]; lit. reign of grandfathers) is the informal practice of initiation (see:hazing) of new junior conscripts, formerly to the Soviet Armed Forces and today to the Russian armed forces, Internal Troops, and (to a much lesser extent) FSB Border Guards, as well as the military forces of certain former Soviet Republics. It consists of brutalization by more senior conscripts serving their last year of compulsory military service as well as NCOs and officers.

Dedovshchina encompasses a variety of subordinating or humiliating activities undertaken by the junior ranks: from doing the chores of the senior ranks to violent and sometimes lethal physical and psychological abuse, not unlike an extremely vicious form of bullying or even torture. It is often cited as a major source of poor morale in the ranks.

Often with the justification of maintaining authority, physical violence or psychological abuse can be used to make the “youth” do certain fatiguing duties. In many situations, hazing is in fact not the goal. Conscripts with seniority exploit their juniors to provide themselves with a more comfortable existence, and the violent aspects arise when juniors refuse to "follow traditions". There have been occasions where soldiers have been seriously injured, or, in extraordinary situations, killed.

The term is derived from "ded" (Russian: дед, meaning grandfather), which is the Russian Army army slang equivalent of gramps, meaning soldiers at their third (or fourth, which is also known as "dembel" (Russian: дембель) year of compulsory service, stemming from a vulgarization of the word "demobilization" (Russian: демобилизация demobilizatsiya) - this word is erroneously used by soldiers to describe the act of resigning from the army; soldiers also refer to this "dembel" or "DMB" (Russian: ДМБ)) 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 Efreitor ranks.

...
Wikipedia