Talk:Militsiya

assessment

Good content, however more pictures and a list of references are needed for B class or higher--SGGH 15:07, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Old talk

People, I've cleaned up and widened the article according to the sad and complicated reality : )). Looks like some of the authors were deeply mistaken about the structure of Russian police. Hence, there can be a major confusing on the other Russsia-related law enforcement pages such as OMON. Guys, cut that crap about Spetsnaz and OSNAZ - OMON is neither that, nor the department of MVD. It is nothing else that a Soviet analogue of American SWAT. I also deleted a totally-mistaken navbox. So somebody please update respective pages for Russia - this is not my primary goal. In case if somebody questions my knowledge - see my user page. And I watch Russian TV every day.

P.S. All the Ukrainian militsiya stuff will be at MVS (Ukraine) or however will we rename it.AlexPU

OSNAZ or Special Forces

Removed the following erroneus passage:

• OSNAZ or Special Forces.

People, I'd like to stress the abuse of the OSNAZ and SPETSNAZ terms. May be all of them should replaced with the commando as more specific and unambiguous? Anyway, MVD units you may think about fall firmly into either Internal Troops (if you mean "спецназ внутренних войск") or miltsiya itself (if you mean OMON). Can't you guys see it from the above-written, or from discussion at Talk:OMON and Talk:Spetsnaz? AlexPU 21:22, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Not Vandalism

I've removed the part about post-Soviet Russian "police" because it is, as all other articles about Russia, totally biased stating only bad points. I have never seen any criticisms like that on any other countries' pages. In the US police article every word gloryfies them, everything else is the same. I'm not against criticism as it is, but I am against it being on Wikipedia and giving people the wrong impression. Unless someone writes a normal neutral article which simply describes the Russian police and its system, I will continue to delete the section. Please hate Russia all you want but not on Wikipedia.

I mean, all, abslolutely all articles about something Russian only have anti- points in them saying how bad everything and everyone is. As I said, I don't care if everyone has their heads in their bottoms but NOT on Wikipedia. Lars 14:07, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm afraid it's not about bias or Wikipedia, it's ONLY about Russia's real image in the world :)). Ukrained 15:27, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

I'd like the give my own views on this. To Lars: try not to delete things if they are relevant and factually accurate, as the Russian militsiya section currently is. I have many friends in Russia, and distrust of the militsiya is deeply ingrained and to a large extent earned. A more pressing concern is that most of the information in that section is 10 years out of date - I'm sure that there has been recent progress in this area, now that Russia is full of oil money and Putin seems set on restoring order. In fact, I remember hearing something about the government cracking down on private security forces to prevent there being many different systems at once. Not quite sure of the details, though. Maybe there's some more info in the Russian wiki article that could be translated... Esn 07:47, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

OK, guys, I wasn't the one who wrote RF section (unlie others in this article). But if you want "updates" on how Putin "restores the order" in militsiya, find out what happened in 2004 in the city of Blagoveshensk (Bashkiria) :)))ИЗБИТЫЙ ГОРОД.

And my serious fair threat to those Russians that vandalize Ukraine-related articles: if you don't cease that, I'll start developing artilces on modern Putinland (with all my vast knowledge and references). It's not of my priority, but you'll get if propagocensoship won't stop. (This, of course, doesn't refer to any of the editors in this talk section).AlexPU 10:54, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

A move proposed

I suggest to move this in Militsia--Nixer 16:07, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Oppose. Neither "militsiya" nor "militsia" are English words (they are listed in none of the English dictionaries I was able to get my hands on; unlike, say, okhranka or cheka). This is a transliteration. Transliteration in Wikipedia is guided by WP:RUS, which prescribes using current title. I would, however, support the move to an appropriate English title, if, indeed, there is one. How is Russian militsiya normally referred to in English-language texts? "Russian police", for example, gets eight time more google hits than either "militsiya" or "militsia", not to mention the fact that we already have Category:Russian police officers. Should this be moved to Russian police?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 17:01, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

It normally should be translated as militia because initially it was really workers' and peasants' militia and is in turn the transliteration of the Latin word militia into Russian alphabet. Militsia is closer to the pronounciation and transliteration rules agree that the "-ия" ending traditionally transliterated as "-ia" (Bashkiria, Evenkia, Turkmenia, Ossetia, Yulia etc).--Nixer 19:11, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Meanings of the English word "militia" do not include "official police force of a country". Your further etimological analysis with consequent mapping of "militia" to "militsia" constitutes nothing more than original research. Thence, my oppose vote still stands. Also note that "Bashkiria", "Evenkia" et al. are not transliterations but established English names listed in dictionaries.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 00:29, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Traditionally the Russian police have been termed militia in the English speaking world ( e.g. see the film 'Gorki park' ). This may be completely wrong translation but it is common usgae and I believe that Wiki follows common usage. 217.7.209.108 12:00, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

That "traditional usage" may be quite OK in a movie, in a newspaper article, or among tourists visiting Rusisa, as it refers mostly to the cops patrolling the streets (i.e., the part of militsiya people see the most). However, once you remember that "militsiya" is in fact a branch of executive power which is responsible for a lot more than maintaining order in the streets and fighting crime, the term militia suddenly starts looking quite amateurish and plain incorrect.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 17:53, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Split proposal

Folks, this really needs to be a disambig page from which Russian, Belarusian, Ukrainian and Polish pages are branched. Chris 04:30, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Please explain in details. The larger portion of text reflects issues common for all 4 countries, and not only for them. It doesn't need moving anywhere. As for lowest country sections, I was indeed thinking of selective moving them into respective main articles, keeping only in "See also". If you agree with my vision, I'll start doing it and will receive your help & opinions with thanks. Otherwise I'm gonna delete splitting template. Thank you,AlexPU 06:26, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

OK, I'm removing template, but leaving open the discussion of splitting in my way.AlexPU 18:38, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Irrelevant paragraph

Guys, I moved here the following irrelevant text:

Historical secret police organizations

• Third Section of His Imperial Majesty's Own Chancellery
• Special Corps of Gendarmes
• Okhrannoye otdeleniye (Okhrana or Okhranka) (Security Section) (1866-1917)
• Oprichniki (1565-1573) under Ivan the Terrible

Militsiya is no secret police, it's just police; neither of agencies listed in the paragraph was a conventional police. Please note that littering the article with irrelevant sections leads to inadequate attempts to rewrite other sections, to split it etc.AlexPU 06:40, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

P.S. Let's find appropriate place for this piece later. What about Law enforcement in Russia?AlexPU 06:44, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Tortures

This is a quite high number of tortures for confessions. And a very serious accusation. Therefore it cannot be unexplained in a single sentense. Please provide how the author of the quoted book came to this conclusion, what time period is addressed. I don't believe that such numbers are possible to know. Aslo, such serious statenent cannot be based on an opinion of a single author. We are writing encyclopedia ere, not a horror movie or detective story. At best the sentence is question must be restated as an opinion of the books's author.

I am not saying that russian police are all good guys. I am saying that such accusation must have a more solid grounds than a single sentence quoting a single book. If it is a real, problem it must be addressed by a serious text, possibly a separate article. `'Miikka 20:01, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Alert: Image nominated for deletion

Please be aware that the image of the Russian militsya on parade, [1], has been nominated for deletion from Wikipedia here: Wikipedia:Images_and_media_for_deletion/2007_August_24#Image:Militsya on parade.jpg. All are encouraged to (a) participate in the discussion there, (b) improve the article so the value of the image to it is clearer, and/or (c) search for or create a free image of comparable quality.—DCGeist 03:10, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was No consensus, per discussion below. -GTBacchus^(talk) 05:29, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

---

I think that the article should be moved to a more generalized Militia (Police) article. The term Militia was used for a police in many former communist states in their respective official languages. Currently it is not clear what perspective the article deals with: Only the ex-Soviet one? and/or the modern Russian or Ukrainian or Belarusian one? Or it includes the Eastern Bloc countries such as Poland which had the Milicja Obywatelska and the Non-Aligned SFR Yugoslavia which had its own Milicija? All of these countries regardless of their differences adopted the term "militia" for their police forces following the same Bolshevik Leninist example: The usage of the term "militia" for "police", despite its original military conotation, originates from early Soviet history, when the Bolsheviks intended to associate their new law enforcement authority with the self-organization of the people and to distinguish it from the "bourgeois class protecting" police. A decision should be made: either the article will deal with the Russian police only OR it will deal with all the (former) communist police forces named Militia regardless of the country.Dzole 02:28, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Moreover the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs has its own article with a detailed overview of the history of police in Russia. The article Ministry of Internal Affairs (Ukraine) too. Dzole 02:31, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

• Comment. I don't disagree that the article should be moved, but I do not believe "militia (police)" is an acceptable alternative title. None of the English-language dictionaries I consulted defined the word "militia" as "police". Using it as such may be acceptable in an informal communications, but not in an encyclopedia. If we are to move this article, we need to find an acceptable title (and it does not have to be just one word; something along the lines of "law enforcement agencies in Slavic countries" might work well).—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 14:59, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Our article Militia does state Eastern European usage in the lead — I'm not sure if it's an original research, but the term has been used in EE context in English [2]. Duja► 10:56, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
    • I would prefer hearing an opinion of a native speaker regarding this. An opinion by a linguist would be ideal.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 17:13, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
• Questions other than the name, how are these different than Paramilitary or Gendarmerie or something like that? I probably oppose the move to Militia (Police) -- it just sounds so ambiguous. How ambiguous is this term Militsiya? If this article is just to be about the Russian police, doesn't that already exist at Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs? Could this be a WP:summary style article like e.g. Police? Or is each country's militsiya unique? Ewlyahoocom 08:55, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

• Comment. That's what one usually gets with a badly scoped article. First, the article contains several assertions that "it's not the same as Police in west", but IMO fails to explain how it is substantially different. I suppose police organization, scope and name are at least slightly different from one country to another.
  On to the Dzole's comments: I think that the article's best direction would be to focus to the Soviet Union police and its successors. Thus, something along the lines of Militia (Eastern Europe), in summary style should work. Country specifics could go to country-specific articles, like Milicja Obywatelska. Duja► 10:56, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

• Comment
  

1. Despite the differences between the Western police and the Eastern "militias" (not the military militias), both were police (chasing of criminals, regulation of traffic and all that). Its the same thing. Normally, there were some differences due to different political systems and the communist ideology (persecution of dissidents and all that). Despite that there's no difference. Thats why I suggested "Militia (Police)". The title suggests that the word "Militia" could be also used for Police forces.
2. Slavic countries police forces is not acceptable since the term "Militia" was also used in Romania and probably in some other non-Slavic countries too.
3. Police in the former Eastern Bloc would be also unacceptable. Politicaly, SFR Yugoslavia was a non-alligned country. Another note: the police forces in the former East Germany were called Volkspolizei (People's Police), so not all eastern bloc police forces were called "militia".
4. Police in Eastern Europe is also not acceptable, the UN counts the former Yugolsav countries as belonging to South Europe or Southeast Europe [3]. Dzole 16:35, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

I maintain that "Eastern Europe" is the most accurate and value-neutral term. SFRY geopolitically did belong to Eastern Europe, despite being a non-aligned country. Besides, apart from mentions in the lead, SFRY milicija it's not even discussed in the article. GDR and Hungary are exceptions — we're aiming for an accurate and NPOV title, not for a "yadda yadda" overly precise one. Duja► 12:25, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

This request has been at the bottom of the backlog for some time, and I'm not reading a clear consensus out of the above discussion. There seems to be little support for the proposed move target, but it's not clear what should really be done with the article, which we're saying has some issues regarding its scope? I'm going to close this as a "no consensus" and remove the RM listing, and if the editors here decide to move the article after all, to whatever title, then please let me or another administrator know, or file another request at WP:RM. In any event, please let me know if I can be of any further assistance. -GTBacchus^(talk) 05:29, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Militsiya in the Russian Federation

is very biassed and one-sided section. The only thing one can learn of it is 'how bad is Russian police'. I think it needs correction. Olvegg (talk) 17:59, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

So why not balance it out yourself?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 14:24, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm not competent enough in subject to make this section more reliable. Just going by. Olvegg (talk) 21:04, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Merger

This article should be merged with Police, in a separate section. Anyone agrees?--Mr nonono (talk) 08:37, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

Nope (see the "name and status" section for why). It could use a rename, however. "Militsiya" is not an English word; it's just a straight transliteration of the Russian term.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); May 17, 2010; 19:54 (UTC)

well, but the content should be merged. I don´t see the reason for this article to exist. "Militsiya" is just police, but with another name in russian. It´s nothing special.--Mr nonono (talk) 18:01, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Well, I'd say that the length of the page alone warrants a standalone article. And no, it's not "just police". "Just police" would be municipal militsiya, plans for establishing which in Russia have now been on the drawing board for years, but which has not yet been implemented in practice (apart, if I'm not mistaken, from a couple pilot projects).

That said, I wholeheartedly agree that the current title ("militsiya") sucks rocks. However, the only appropriate place for a merger seems to be MVD, but, again, the article is too long to do a clean merger. Any other ideas?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); May 19, 2010; 18:41 (UTC)

First of all we should change the name, for obvious reasons. I recommend militia or militia(police), if it does not create problems.--Mr nonono (talk) 20:56, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

"Militia" means a completely different thing in English. I believe that name was proposed in the past and got shot down. By the way, another possible candidate to merge this article into is Law enforcement in Russia, which is currently neither here nor there; half a disambig, half a list.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); May 19, 2010; 21:19 (UTC)

It should be merged into Law enforcement in Russia then, if we have not problems. If not, then I´ll try to find another name for this.--Mr nonono (talk) 15:59, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

I've posted a comment at WT:RUSSIA pointing to this thread. Hopefully someone else might come up with suggestions.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); May 20, 2010; 16:11 (UTC)

Language box and other miscellaneous

Is it really necessary to list all the ways the word "militia" is spelled in the Eastern European languages? I can understand why the Russian is there (the USSR established the system after all) but it's obvious that, no matter the variation, they all have virtually the same pronunciation and meaning. If we're to keep the box, then we might as well add the alphabets of other former Soviet-republics but adding any more just seems to make a superfluous situation even more superfluous.

This aside, there also seems to be an unnecessary proliferation of sections at the end of the article beginning with "Militsya in..." without actually giving any additional information other than directing a reader to another article. It seems that here too all the information should just be cobbled into a single section, outlining the differences that really exist and matter between the post-Soviet/Russian militsyas and other Eastern European countries. If there are no objections, I will remove the language box entirely (preserving the Russian in the lead) and try to combine the sections at the bottom to form a single paragraph.--Marshal Bagramyan (talk) 21:59, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

I would argue that the names of militsiya in different languages is encyclopedic information, and, as such, belongs in the article. Whether a language box is the best way to present that information is probably debatable, but removing this altogether will not improve the article in any way and will actually make it slightly worse. How about moving the box further down (there really is no need to display it so prominently), or textifying it altogether in a separate section?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 9, 2010; 14:55 (UTC)

Having the box moved down to a section below is a good start but I still find it rather out of place that all these languages are included. The USSR exported its system of government and administration to all the countries under its orbit in Eastern Europe after World War II, but there needs to be some explanation on how listing them in each and every language is pertinent to the article itself. For that matter, I'm amenable to retaining the spelling for countries such as the former Yugoslavia and converting the entire box into a paragraph; something similar to what is now found in the lead, "...the term militsya was [is] used in Eastern Bloc and the Warsaw Pact countries, including Poland (milicja), Romania (miliţia)..." and so forth. --Marshal Bagramyan (talk) 01:09, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

I think that's an acceptable compromise. The presence of the box (or, rather, of the infomation the box contains) is the matter of the article's scope. It only seems redundant because the sections pertaining to the other countries are either underdeveloped or missing altogether. Once that problem is solved, the box/list of spellings will no longer look so out of place.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 10, 2010; 12:09 (UTC)

Splendid. I'll wait another day or two before making any major edit, in case someone else has an objection or a better solution to offer. I have some official Soviet sources with me as well, so we can at least start referencing this article more fully.--Marshal Bagramyan (talk) 21:23, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Alright, I've gone ahead with the move and have numerous minor corrections as well. I hope there are no serious objections to them. Sadly, the sources I have on hand with me on Russia do not adequately address the information found on this page and thus much of it remains uncited. Hopefully that'll change once I get my hand on other material.--Marshal Bagramyan (talk) 01:43, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Renaming Militiya in to Politsiya (Police)

There will be restructurization in Russian Fed. and by 2011 militsiya will be renamed. http://rt.com/politics/russian/police-law-discussion-results/ I suggest to add this info Vg colt (talk) 02:24, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

Support: The Duma passed the new law, although the official name change is on March 1. Perhaps the article needs to be rewritten appropriately.D2306 (talk) 15:55, 28 January 2011 (UTC)